


In the Dark

by pherryt



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Accident, Angst, Confessions, Demons, Fairies, Hunted, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Magic, Modern Fantasy, Multi, Reunions, Secrets, blind!jimmy, creature!cas, creature!jimmy, dragon/angel hybrids, hidden/lost kingdom, hiding/on the run, hurt!Dean, hurt!jimmy, one sided obsession - Freeform, show typical violence, witch!Dean
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-16
Updated: 2019-06-16
Packaged: 2020-05-12 00:56:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 23,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19218361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pherryt/pseuds/pherryt
Summary: Dean doesn’t know Jimmy and Cas aren’t human, nor do the twins know that Dean is that thing they fear the most - a witch. It’s not until an accident at Jimmy’s job renders him blind that truths start to come out, and that their lives might all be in danger…





	1. Prologue - The Accident

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to my DCJ BB - which i hadn't actually planned to write and then, here we are!  
> thank you to rosemoonweaver/rw-eaden for the beta and thank you to [ princessjimmynovak for the beaaaaaaautiful art!! ](https://princessjimmynovak.tumblr.com/post/185634329895/art-for-in-the-dark-by-pherryt-for-the)
> 
> Seriously. the art. so good. :D just check out the details in these pieces!!! AND make sure to stop by her tumblr and tell HER how good it is too!!!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note - the banner is the promo piece I made, which is the authors responsibility for the bang. the rest of the art is made by princessjimmynovak and will appear in chapters 3 and 4 (my count, not ao3 count)

*~*~*~*~*~DEAN*~*~*~*~*

Dean skidded around the corner, heart pounding as he raced towards the hospital in his Impala.

Cas hadn’t sounded too good on the phone, and he’d only said two whole words.

“Jimmy. Hospital.”

And then he’d choked, his breath shaking.  

“I’m on my way,” Dean had growled out, trying his best to stay calm. Trying his best to be the rock Cas was going to need, whatever was happening.

But to _ be  _ that rock, Dean had to  _ get  _ there. And he had to make sure  _ he  _ didn’t wind up in the hospital too. His foot itched to floor the pedal, to let his baby speed through the streets faster than he already was but he held himself back with clenched hands, white knuckles showing starkly, on the steering wheel.

Finally,  _ finally,  _ the hospital was in sight.

“Please be okay, please be okay, please be okay,” Dean muttered under his breath as he haphazardly parked the Impala in the emergency lot, yanked the keys out of the ignition and booked it for the emergency room doors.

Just outside the doors, Cas was pacing back and forth, his trenchcoat billowing out behind him with every twist, every turn.

“Cas!” Dean shouted, his voice cracking.

Cas froze, then his head yanked around, his eyes landing on Dean before the rest of him followed suit. He strode forward quickly, crashing into Dean. Dean’s arms came up instinctively to pull Cas toward him, to cradle his head against Dean’s.

“What are you doing out here?” Dean asked. “Is he-?” Dean swallowed, unable to finish.

“They wouldn’t let me see him. He’s… he’s in surgery,” Cas choked out.

“What happened?” Dean asked, his mind whirling, trying to figure out what was going on.

“Freak accident at work.”

Dean scrunched up his face thinking that through. Jimmy was an art teacher who took on side gigs and commissions in a studio he rented out. What kind of accident could have even happened? He just couldn’t fathom it.

Unless…

“How?” Dean pushed. It couldn’t have been that. “Sniffing the glue won’t wind you up in surgery.”

“Something about the kiln exploding in his face.”

“It’s a school kiln, not something industrial – I knew stuff  _ inside _ could explode, but the Kiln itself?” Dean asked out loud. It sounded just a little fishy to him, and the niggling voice inside him whispered that he  _ knew  _ what really happened, in a roundabout way.

No. Cas and Jimmy were normal. It wasn’t likely they’d be the target of anything, except as a fluke. Unless it was the fact that they were associated with Dean. In which case… he needed to get out of there, for all their sakes. But not before making sure they were okay.

Cas didn’t answer, breaking the hug instead and Dean reluctantly let him go. Instead, Cas grabbed his hand, pulling Dean with him as he stormed back into the ER, getting Dean squared away at the desk so they could both wait for news of Jimmy.

Dean wasn’t family but he  _ was  _ both the twin’s emergency contact. They hadn’t any family and few friends. As often as Dean moved around, he knew how that was, how hard it was to let people into your lives. At least he  _ did  _ have family, small as it was. He’d just never expected to have to  _ be  _ their emergency contact. His stomach roiled with worry over Jimmy, over Cas, though he tried not to show it. He needed to stay strong and calm for Cas’s sake. God, he loved them both so much, more than they knew, as hard as Dean had tried not to. He couldn’t afford attachments but something about the twins had wormed their way into his heart.

Jimmy  _ had  _ to be okay.

It seemed to take forever before anyone  _ did  _ come to see them.

“Mr. Novak? Mr. Smith?” called the nurse who’d just walked through the double doors.

Cas leapt to his feet, Dean not a second behind him, both of them walking quickly to her side. Cas still had a grip on Dean’s hand, his fingers squeezing Dean’s together so hard he could swear he could hear the bones shifting in his fingers.

“How is he?” Cas asked gruffly.

“He’s out of surgery and stable. Most of the damage was to his face, particularly his eyes,” she said gently.

“His eyes?” Dean asked.

She flashed a look at him and then back to Cas. “You need to prepare yourselves for the possibility that your brother and friend may never recover his sight. But otherwise, he came through fairly unscathed and should make a full recovery.”

Dean gasped and covered his mouth, while Cas did his best to break his hand. Of course, both of them were extremely grateful that Jimmy was alive and otherwise unharmed, but both were thinking the same thing, Dean was sure.

Art was Jimmy’s  _ life…  _ if he lost his eyes…

How would he even cope with a loss of that magnitude?

 


	2. Chapter 1 - Of Secrets

*~*~*~*~*CASTIEL~*~*~*~*~*

In the end, Dean had stayed as long as he could. He’d needed to open the bakery, unable to find coverage at the last minute. But he’d stretched the time out as far as he could, keeping Cas company before finally, with a last, lingering touch to Cas’s shoulder, Dean had left, promising to come back as soon as he could.

The wrench of it, of his absence - the withdrawal of a pillar of support that Cas should never have come to rely on – left an ache behind in Cas’s chest.

He sat at Jimmy’s side, willing him to wake up, to be okay. He clasped one of Jimmy’s hands in his – the one without the IV or the monitor.  With the incessant beeping, there was no rest possible for Cas – but then, he had no inclination of sleeping till Jimmy could wake and tell Cas himself that everything was okay.

A doctor had come in and explained Jimmy’s condition, why the surgery had taken so long when he was mostly okay except for his eyes, but it had all washed over Cas in a haze.

Jimmy was safe. Jimmy was alive. And when they got out of here, Cas needed to get down to the Emporium and see if there was anything that could be put together to help Jimmy. He couldn’t lose his sight, he just couldn’t.

The first few times Jimmy woke, he was too out of it to really do much else but ask why it was so dark and to grip Cas’s hand as tightly as he could. There was a trembling in his fingers, a quiver to his lips when he realized, finally, that he was in the hospital and that the prognosis for his eyes wasn’t very good.

He tried to hide it. That was Jimmy’s way, never wanting to be a burden. But Cas could tell. Jimmy was scared and Cas, as always, responded.

Jimmy had always been more carefree than Cas, and all these years and years of running and hiding who they were hadn’t dampened that.

This might.

Jimmy zoned in and out all night, and Cas felt so damn alone, keeping vigil over his brother alone. There should have been others here, by their side. Their mother – long gone now, died protecting them. Their father – forbidden from interference (but hadn’t their birth been interference enough?). He’d done what he could against the strictures that kept him from helping, but it wasn’t enough. Their brothers and sisters  – Gabriel, Samandriel, Anna and Hannah – were who knew where forced into hiding as well.

They’d been separated long ago and neither Cas nor Jimmy knew what had befallen them.

As for friends… Dean, Charlie and Balthazar were the only ones they could call friends in a long time. They tried very hard not to get attached, never knowing when they’d have to pick up and leave. But the three of them had wormed their way into Cas and Jimmy’s hearts.

Finally, Jimmy was awake enough to sit up, to eat, to talk, and after spending some time reassuring himself that Jimmy was, other than his eyes, all right, Cas finally broached the subject he’d been dreading.

“Sweetheart,” he said softly, pulling Jimmy’s hand into his. “I need to go, my love. I don’t want to, but we have to know what happened. If it was truly an accident or…”

He didn’t need to finish. Jimmy’s face went paler – if that was possible – and he whispered brokenly. “You’re leaving me here?”

“Lord knows I don’t want to,” Cas whispered. “But you should be safe here. I’m going to get a few things from the apartment and head down to the school. One way or the other, we _need_ to know.”

“I know,” Jimmy said reluctantly. “But I don’t want to be alone.” He sighed, squeezed Cas’s hand and then let go. “Go on. it needs to be done. The sooner you go, the sooner you’ll be back.”

“I’ll be as quick as I can,” Cas said. he longed to lean forward and give Jimmy a kiss, but they had no _true_ privacy here. Despite the knocking before they entered, nurses and doctors could come in at any time, and Cas didn’t trust either of them to be able to compose themselves in time, with as off-kilter as they both were just now.

Especially Jimmy. The pain medication might slow his response time.

Steeling himself to leave, Cas picked up his trenchcoat and laid one last look on Jimmy. “I’ll be back. Be brave.”

Jimmy smiled at him sadly, wrenching at Cas’s heart as he left.

He got into the Lincoln the brothers shared and made the drive back to their apartment first, just as he’d said, wasting no time in finding the handful of trinkets they’d had specially made, before going over to the school. It was almost time for school to start, but he was hoping he could get in and out before the kids began to arrive.

It was times like these he missed being able to use his wings. He’d have been there and back already if he could.

 _Goddamn witches_ , he seethed. _Greedy assbutts that can’t let people live in peace_. Using his brother’s keycard, he got into the building and made his way down the hall to the art room, well familiar from his many visits to his brother’s work.

The art room was cordoned off for safety’s sake, the door closed to keep away gawkers but there was no one guarding it, and after a quick look around, Cas ducked inside, shutting the door behind him.

No one needed to see what he was doing.

The room was still a disaster, and he wondered why it hadn’t been cleaned up yet. He swallowed thickly at the sight of something red smeared across the floor. It could have been paint, but he was absolutely sure it was Jimmy’s blood.

Taking a deep, steadying breath, Cas took out the items he’d retrieved from their apartment and laid them on the closest table. Most were one shot spells, not to be wasted unless necessary, but if this didn’t count as necessary, he didn’t know what did.

The first he activated with a word, a shiny stone he didn’t know the name of, and he felt the privacy barrier spring up around the room. He turned to the second, a pendant, and spoke another word as he held it, dangling by its chain from his fist. It looked like one of those pendulums, and that sort of what it was, only it reacted to malevolent magic.

And it did.

It vibrated in his hand quickly, swinging wildly and Cas’s eyes widened. It had never reacted so strongly before. Whatever it was, it was powerful. More powerful than any witch he and Jimmy had ever encountered.

What if it wasn’t a witch?

He stopped the pendulum and slung it over his neck. The spell on it needed to be renewed, and in the meantime, it was a safe enough spot to stash it.

Picking up the last object, he used it to scan for energy types – and came up with nothing recognizable.

It wasn’t witches.

But it was bad.

Was this whole thing coincidental, or was Jimmy deliberately targeted?

Either way, he couldn’t see any way around this situation other than packing everything up and leaving. Again.

Dammit.

He’d liked Pontiac. And… and Dean…

But there was no help for it. He grabbed a piece of the kiln, hoping to get a chance to go down to the Emporium and ask Charlie or Balthazar to look at it, and picked everything else up.

He had to get back to Jimmy. His skin crawled and he didn’t feel safe here and Jimmy was vulnerable right now.

Too vulnerable.

Unsettled and worried about what he’d discovered, Cas wasted no time in getting everything cleaned up and left the school building. But when Cas got back into Jimmy’s car and turned the key, the car sputtered, making a strange clicking, choking sound.

He tried again, but the sound only repeated and the engine didn’t turn on. Swallowing thickly, he relaxed the key and tried again. Still nothing. He tried it again and again before finally conceding defeat, slumping down, his forehead hitting the steering wheel.

Just what they needed.

The uneasiness ramped up to real fear, though he tried to remind himself that it was perfectly normal for cars to have issues. Only last month they’d needed to get the brakes replaced, a regular piece of maintenance. This was… probably just… the same sort of thing, right?

Stomach twisting, Cas fumbled for his phone. He had to get back to Jimmy now. He didn’t know what was after them and two accidents linked to Jimmy couldn’t be coincidence, right? He had to make sure Jimmy was safe. Oh god, why had he left him alone?

He used the app on his phone to call for an Uber first, then while he waited, he called a tow truck – though what good that would do them if they needed to leave town fast, he wasn’t sure. He’d briefly considered Dean, but Dean would want to know why he’d gone to the school in the first place. He knew it wouldn’t make sense to an ordinary person, when he should have, by all rights, been at the hospital.

He climbed out of the Lincoln, gathering his things and anything else important Jimmy had left in the car and stuffed them into his trenchcoat, slamming the door shut behind him.

The Uber, of course, arrived first, so he dropped the keys on the seat of the Lincoln and left the car unlocked as he climbed in. He wasn’t waiting for the truck. He _had_ to make sure Jimmy was still okay, still where Cas had left him.

The worry grew the longer he was forced to wait, and it wasn’t until they pulled up to the hospital, he’d paid the uber driver and he’d sprinted inside, out of breath, to find Jimmy awake and just fine, Dean there with him, that he dared to relax.

Seeing Dean made his stomach drop for a completely different reason. He’d been hoping against hope that they didn’t need to leave town but all of that had been dashed with what he’d found. Leaving town was for the best – for him and Jimmy – but it also meant leaving Dean behind.

But what else could they do?

*~*~*~*~*~DEAN*~*~*~*~*

When Dean arrived back at the hospital, exhausted as hell and only a few hours after he’d left, he found Jimmy alone in his room, no Cas in sight.

“Hey, you’re awake,” Dean said with partially forced cheer. It _was_ good to see Jimmy awake and not drugged to hell and back (he was probably still drugged but he definitely looked way more alert than before) but seeing the bandages wrapped around his face was like a slap in Dean’s face, a reminder that things might never be the same again.

Other than the bandages over his eyes, Jimmy’s face was a mass of bruises and even some stitches, one particularly long gash up the side disappearing under the bandages.

“Hey Dean,” Jimmy said cheerfully.

Dean’s stomach twisted. How could Jimmy be so cheerful when… when they didn’t even know if he’d get his sight back?

“How ya feelin’, buddy?” Dean winced at that. Buddy was certainly not the appellation he ever wanted to tag on to Jimmy. Or Cas, for that matter, but the close-knit twins didn’t do relationships, even if Dean dared to start something that couldn’t end well, by his very nature. In any case, none of that mattered, since Dean knew he didn’t have a chance with either of them, much less both of them at once.

And really, was that the sort of thing to be fixating over when there were more serious issues going on?

He didn’t need the voice of his brother to whisper that he was looking for any excuse _not_ to have to think about Jimmy losing his sight.

“Well, not quite strong enough to rip the ears off a gundark, but close enough,” Jimmy replied. The response startled Dean into a laugh. “There ya go! You guys are all too somber. It was driving me crazy.”

“Tell me you didn’t kick Cas out? You’re his brother, you know he’s just worried about you,” Dean said, pulling up a chair alongside the hospital bed. Jimmy’s head swiveled blindly – Dean grimaced – following Dean’s voice around the room.

Jimmy sighed. “I know. He’s _always_ worried about me. But no, I didn’t kick him out. He went off in search of food.”

“Dude, you guys knew I was on my way, you coulda asked me to bring something with me,” Dean pointed out.

Jimmy shrugged, picking at the blanket across his legs. “It’s Cas. I think he just… needed to take a walk. You know how he gets when things become a little overwhelming. It’s either he needs space or he clings to you. There’s no in between.”

“Yeah,” Dean agreed. He knew what Jimmy meant. Cas’s behavior had sent Dean some pretty mixed signals for a while when they first met.

“So where have you been? Couldn’t get anyone to open the bakery for you?” Jimmy teased.

“God, I wanted to be here. I’m so sorry, Jimmy. I- “

“Dean, Dean, Dean! Calm down. I ain’t mad. That bakery is your life. It’s not like you can do much here anyway, so you might as well get on with it,” Jimmy said with a shrug.

Right. Wasn’t that a knife in his gut? Cause Jimmy and Cas _didn’t_ need him. There was no way Dean could make this better.

Well, maybe he could. Whether it had been his fault or not remained to be seen.

He bit his lip. That kiln accident still sounded mighty suspicious to him and he did have a few _resources_ the twins didn’t know about. Which was where he _really_ was this morning after a very brief stop at the bakery to set things in motion and to cover his ass if anyone asked his whereabouts.

Dean’s family were an unbroken line of witches going back further then even other witches knew, holding a secret that could cost them their lives. Dean had never even gone by his family name, drilled to guard it close since childhood. It was knowledge that could not get out, since bad things happened when it did. His whole childhood had been proof of that.

Even if Dean _wanted_ to tell the twins all of his secrets – and he did. He really, really did - being a witch was least among them and, for the safety of so many, he didn’t dare take that risk.

Jimmy moved, breaking Dean out of his – as Jimmy had all too accurately called out without even being able to see his freaking face – somber thoughts. He reached down to his lap, picked up a… a clipboard? Dean squinted at it suspiciously, just as Cas returned.

Leaping up, Dean abandoned his seat by Jimmy’s side, ready and willing to give it back to Cas in a heartbeat.

“Hey, Cas,” Dean said with a blush.

“Hello, Dean,” Cas answered.

“So did the doctors tell us any more about what’s going on with Jimmy?”

Cas nodded and Jimmy protested.

“I’m right here, guys. I’m blind, not deaf. You could ask me, you know,” Jimmy whined.

“Of course, brother, but you _were_ rather out of it the last time the doctor came by, so I thought you might understand why Dean asked me,” Cas replied evenly.

“I _guess,”_ Jimmy sighed relenting.

“They say he can go home in a couple of days, possibly even tomorrow. Most of the injuries aren’t really that bad. A few stitches were all that was necessary. All except for…” Cas trailed off, looking over at Jimmy sadly.

“There’s no hope there?” Dean asked softly.

“They’re not sure,” Cas hedged. “There _will_ be some damage to his vision but they can’t say whether he’ll be completely blind or not. But he’ll need to keep his eyes covered for a few days to let the injuries heal before we can find out, one way or the other.”

“Well, that uh… sounds like you guys will have a rough time of it. Jimmy’ll probably need someone with him 24/7 to help him as he adjusts to things, so, you know, I can do that.” Dean still didn’t know what had happened, but he felt sure the twins needed protection. If he could _be_ with them, he could provide that.

“That won’t be necessary, Dean. I’m his brother and we live together. I’m perfectly capable of helping him myself,” Cas said stiffly.

Spirit falling, Dean managed a weak, “Yeah, sure, whatever you say, Cas.”

Figured the loves of his life didn’t need or want this help. He had perfect confidence in Cas’s ability to help Jimmy – if everything was normal, which he was certain it was not – and Dean had been hoping that Cas would accept the excuse that Dean just wanted to make it easier on the two of them.

He’d done the recovery thing with a brother being the only attendant before, and sometimes you just got on each other’s nerves, no matter how much you loved each other. They would need space from one another on occasion and being their friend, Dean had hoped to protect them in the guise of giving them all that.

Then again, the twins had never once let Dean set foot into their apartment.

He wasn’t the only one with secrets.

“Well, I’ll just… get out of your hair then,” Dean muttered, stuffing his hands in his pockets and moving toward the door.

“Dean – “ Cas called, his voice contrite.

“Dean Smith, don’t you dare leave! I have a very important question to ask you,” Jimmy called.

Turning slowly to face Jimmy, unsure what to expect, but eager to help in any way, Dean took in the sight before him and blinked.

Jimmy was holding that damn clipboard up in front of him, facing outward. The paper was covered in scribbles that… almost had a shape. He looked from the clipboard, to Jimmy, to Cas and back to Jimmy.

Cas just looked as confused as he was.

“Umm…” Dean said.

Breaking into a grin, Jimmy waved the clipboard. “So? What did I draw? I was going for an apple. Does it look like an apple? Thought I’d try something simple. I have this idea that I can kinda use my other hand to help me figure out where my borders are and – “

“An apple?” Dean asked. He stared at the picture hard and tried to pick it out. “Um… I guess? Maybe?”

“Come, come, don’t lie. Okay, how about, this one?” He patted the bed to grab a perfectly blank piece of paper and held it out, dropping the clipboard into his lap. “I was going for polar bear in a snowstorm.”

“Jimmy,” Cas said disapprovingly. “Do you really think this is a joking matter?”

The grin fell away from Jimmy’s face. “Look, I know I’m gonna feel like shit about this later, especially with the docs prognosis being pretty poor, that it just… hasn’t really _hit_ me yet, so just… let me feel good now. Is that too much to ask?”

“I’m so sorry,” Cas breathed, striding forward and wrapping his brother in a hug. Jimmy dropped the paper and grabbed him back, his fingers gripping Cas’s rumpled dress shirt so hard that his white knuckles matched the shirt.

“I know, Cassie,” Jimmy said softly. “I know you’re scared. I am too.”

Dean’s eyes watered, watching this touching moment between the brothers. They rarely showed their affection so publicly, and yet Dean had never seen anyone as close as the twins were. Some had said Sam and he were too close but the twins blew past that by miles...

Still, knowing their reluctance to be so open, Dean couldn’t help but feel like he was intruding, though he desperately often wished to be included in on things.

While they were otherwise occupied, Dean slipped out of the room with a heavy heart, so quietly he was certain they never noticed.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay, the scene where jimmy's trying to draw anyway? this whole fic was literally built around THAT. like, i dreamed this scene with random people and the i thought it could be a fic and then everything else built around it as i tried to figure out what the plot was.. and i thought it'd be a lot shorter than it was and then, well, it just blew up a bit. THis fic was literally an accident :D


	3. Chapter 2 - Amelia's Obsession

*~*~*~*~DEAN*~*~*~*~*~*

It was fairly early and normally he’d be at the bakery, but Dean was still too disturbed by the accident to stay still. The brothers didn’t want him helping Jimmy cope and adjust, but he  _ needed  _ to help  _ somehow _ .

He also needed to make sure he wasn’t seeing things where they weren’t.

As soon as he got back to his apartment, he beelined for the spare bedroom, dialing Sam on the way.

It took far too long for Sam to pick up for Dean’s jittery nerves, but finally, the phone stopped ringing and Sam’s voice answered.

“Dean, hey, aren’t you supposed to be working?”

“Yeah, but somethings come up,” Dean said, entering the spare room and snapping his fingers. Lights came on. Not magic, but one of those clap on, clap off devices. Witch or no, magic wasn’t nearly as easy to work as those Harry Potter movies made it out to be.

Especially when you were cut off from your source of power, as his family had been, for centuries now.

The light illuminated the room: the workspace he’d created with his secret library, the herbs on drying racks dotted about the room in various stages of curing, the heavy wooden workbench with what looked like a mad scientist’s experiment bubbling away. There was an old-fashioned cauldron beside it and a couple of trunks under the table and against the wall. There was assorted bric-a-brac strewn what looked like haphazardly about the room, but each item was in a specific place – either for safety or for ease of reach.

Dean placed the phone on the table and pressed speaker before going over to the bookshelf and scanning the titles. He filled Sam in as he did, Sam making appropriate noises along the way.

“ – and so I went down to the school myself this morning before it opened to the faculty. Now, you know I can’t feel energies the way you can, but I could swear there was a… a malevolent cloud hanging over the place. I didn’t see anything suspicious, but I  _ was  _ able to snag a piece of the debris.”

“Jesus, Dean,” Sam said over the phone. “So, do you think Jimmy’s got an enemy or was he just collateral damage?”

Sam didn’t have to say  _ who’s  _ collateral damage, though Dean sure as hell hoped that if he was, it wasn’t because he knew Dean.

“That’s what I aim to find out.” Dean pulled a book off the shelf. “What do you think of using one of the Rowena Divination spells?”

“Hmm… a little showy, drains a lot of reserves, but they’re fucking accurate,” Sam approved. “If there  _ is  _ something there, the right spell will not only tell you it’s there, but what it’s after.”

Something scraped, there was some silence and when Sam came back to the phone, Dean could hear the rifling of pages. They spent the next half hour comparing notes over various spells before finally agreeing on one.

“Right, then,” Dean said, propping the book open on a special stand and dropping the holder in place to keep the pages from turning. Some spells kicked up enough residual energy that it could easily blow away your ingredients or flip the pages open to the wrong spell. That’d been known to  _ kill  _ inattentive witches in the past.

Sam consulted the book just as Dean did, rattling off his ingredients. Technically, Dean could do this bit himself, but it was less room for error to have someone checking over his work, and he didn’t know any local witches he could trust while Sam was away at school.

Again.

Sam had a thing for schooling.

Dean nodded, turning to one of his shelves lined with jars and other odd bits. Carefully, he selected a few and placed them on the workbench, then moved on to the small cauldron, setting the flame going below it.

He frowned at the ingredients, running through their properties in his mind. Rue for a clear view, Sage for wisdom. Wormwood to enhance divination and psychic abilities, Mugwart for prophetic dreams and astral travel.

It was simple, and simple was usually best when it came to spells. But prophetic dreams and astral travel was always a roll of the dice.

“Are you sure about these? Isn’t there something better, more direct that we could replace these with? Like, wouldn’t Jasmine work even better than a combination of Wormwood and Mugwart?”

“It’s never good to improvise with one of Rowena’s spells. Remember the last time?” Sam admonished.

Dean winced. Ugh. Yeah, Dean remembered the last time all too well. He’d had to sequester himself in his apartment for a week to let the cat whiskers and tail wear off on their own, all because he’d taken a shortcut on his allergy spell because he hadn’t had the right ingredients.

It was a stupid mistake and Sam was right to remind him of it, but dammit, he was nervous. This was Jimmy’s life on the line and who knew if maybe Cas’s was too. Dean very much didn’t want this to fail and simple or not, this spell predicted a high likelihood of draining his magical reserves for far longer than he was comfortable with.

And he still had to create protections for Cas and Jimmy that wouldn’t make them suspicious when he gave it to them.

Grumbling, he dripped a little oil into the bottom of the cauldron, one of a few already pre-prepared mixtures he kept made in advance. Some were simple, just an agent for mixing, some had specific traits. Some were ones he and Sam had developed on their own, tweaking for various spells over the years and this one… was a special Rowena blend recommended for 90 percent of her spells.

The dark purple mixture settled at the bottom of the cauldron and immediately started to bubble. He added the four ingredients carefully, glancing carefully at the book for the words to recite. With each word, he pushed forth a tendril of his power, infusing it with will and intent, focusing it on its task.

Near the spell’s end, he grabbed the piece of kiln he’d salvaged and dropped it in the mixture which turned into a glowing lavender with a single, last word,

_ Reveal. _

The glow rose and misted about the tiny cauldron, flowing over the sides and tracing along the path of the silver sigil embedded into the workbench, touching the clear crystal in the front towards which the sigil led.

Images flashed across the crystal’s edge, a picture forming, broken but there. Dean frowned, focusing his magic, letting it flow deeper into the spell and the picture snapped into focus.

It showed one of Jimmy’s coworkers, a woman with long brown hair. Dean had met her once and he’d teased Jimmy because the teacher had had a crush on Jimmy the size of Texas.

It was the only way to distract himself from the possessiveness that had risen when he’d seen where her attention lay. It wasn’t like Dean had any claim over Jimmy  _ or  _ Cas. But crush or not, he’d thought the woman -  Amelia? – was harmless.

Evidently not.

Her image gave way to darkness, red eyes beaming through and Dean shuddered. Demons. A crossroad demon to be specific. What had she done? Was she unwitting prey to the demon or had she sold her soul to hurt Jimmy? And why?

You didn’t kill the one you loved. At least not willingly.

And the better question – did the Demon know about Dean? If he did, regardless of Amelia’s intentions, then Dean – and anyone connected to him – wasn’t safe.

The spell fell apart and the images wavered and faded away, leaving Dean with more questions than answers.

Now he had to convince Jimmy his life was actually in danger, and by extension, Cas too. Magic never quite worked the way it was meant around twins. Could it have been a love spell gone wrong?

It was possible that’s what had happened. 

Dean sure as hell hoped that was it because if it wasn’t, they were all in so much more danger than he’d feared. Either way, the presence of a demon went a long way to explaining the malevolent energy Dean had felt.

His family was all too familiar with such energies.

*~*~*~*~CASTIEL*~*~*~*~*~*

Cas paced the hospital room after Dean left.

He hadn’t been lying when he’d said he was scared. It wasn’t the first time someone had come after him and Jimmy and as far as they could tell, Dean was a normal person.

Jimmy and Cas, on the other hand, were  _ not  _ normal people. They weren’t even people at all and their ‘kind’ – so to speak - were coveted for their magical energies.

And the utmost worst was, outside of some inherent traits of their kind, those energies were absolutely  _ useless _ to  _ them _ .

And so witches wanted them, willingly or not, to strip them of their power, use them till they were bled dry. It had happened time and time again, whenever they ran into witches, even if they didn’t know  _ what _ Cas and Jimmy were, they could  _ feel _ the energy that constantly swirled about them.

To protect themselves from detection, they’d had protections woven about them, using the magic of their fathers’ people. It hid both them and their magic from witches, demons and the like, though it constantly needed renewal.

They’d learned  _ that  _ the hard way.

They were just lucky that their inborn shape-changing magic worked so thoroughly as it did or the doctors here would be crawling all over Jimmy – and by extension, Cas too – and the next thing they knew, they’d be shipped off somewhere as experiments.

He shuddered.

“So it was definitely a magic attack?” Jimmy asked cautiously.

“It was definitely magic based, yes. Attack? I’m not sure,” Cas said, running his hands through his hair in agitation. “I could feel the power there. It was strong and dark. But their intentions? If they’d wanted you dead, you’d  _ be  _ dead, and yet, if they were hoping to use you, why would they injure you so badly?”

“Agreed,” Jimmy said. “And we’re both agreed that Dean stays out of this?”

“Very much so, I would hate to see any harm befall him because of us,” Cas said quietly.

Jimmy sighed and hung his head, his hands picking blindly, absently at his blanket. “I can’t believe we fell in love with a normal human, someone who would always be at risk just being  _ around  _ us.”

Cas was by his side instantly, taking Jimmy’s hands in his. “I know. It’s torture. But at least we have each other. And at least it’s better a normal human than someone we’d have to live in fear from.”

A knock on the closed door had Cas springing away from Jimmy, his face composing itself with long practice. He went to exchange a confused glance with Jimmy and winced when he was met with bandages.

“Um, come in,” Jimmy called out.

The door opened and the largest bouquet of flowers Cas had ever seen walked through the door. It shifted to the side and he saw Jimmy’s coworker, Amelia, peek out from behind the flowers.

His heart immediately sank.

Near as they could tell, Amelia was a normal human too, but she had a major crush on Jimmy and had been relentless in her pursuit of him.

If only she knew the reality of things.

“Mr. Novak! I heard about the accident at the school – I’m so sorry to hear you got hurt!” She stepped further inside, looking around for someplace to put the flowers. She beamed when she realized the little table for the patient was remarkably clear and she deposited the flowers there proudly, turning to beam at Jimmy. As soon as she got a proper look at his face, though, her smile fell away and she gasped.

“Oh my lord!” her hand fluttered over her mouth and Cas had to admit that her distress was very real. It didn’t mean he liked her any better, though. There was something off about her and she never took no for an answer, only seeing Jimmy still single as the green light to keep trying.

“I was going to ask if there was anything I could do to help…” she trailed off uncertainly.

“Ah, Amelia,” Jimmy said, “I appreciate the offer, but I promise you that I’m all set.”

“Are you sure? I’m sure your brother has work to get back to, and then who will help you?” she asked.

“And you don’t?” Cas asked sharply.

“Uh, well… nothing that I couldn’t… take a few days off from,” she spluttered.

Jimmy sighed. “What would you tell the school, Amelia?”

“You’re right. I just hate  _ seeing  _ you like this,” she said, wringing her hands together. An awkward silence descended on the room and she went pale. “I’m… I’m sorry…”

“I’m tired, Amelia. Thank you for the…” Jimmy sniffed the air. “the flowers, but I’m uh…”

“They recently gave him some medication so he’ll be falling asleep soon. Won’t be much company,” Cas jumped to Jimmy’s rescue.

“Oh! Oh, of course. I should let you rest,” Amelia said, backing out of the room. “I hope you… you get better. And anything you need, let me know.”

“Of course,” Jimmy said, yawning.

She beamed at his words, as if he’d promised her the world, and left the room, darting back in to grab the door and close it behind her.

“Amelia sets me on edge, brother,” Cas said slowly after he waited long enough to be sure she was well out of earshot.

“She’s harmless, Cas,” Jimmy said with exasperation, whether for Cas’s insistence that Amelia was trouble or for Amelia herself, or both, Cas was uncertain.

“Obsessed is never harmless,” Cas said, frowning at Jimmy.

“You think  _ she  _ did this? She was absolutely shocked to see me like this,” Jimmy said, pointing in the vague directions of his eyes.

“Her reaction did seem genuine,” Cas agreed begrudgingly. The twins fell into silence, each thinking their own pensive thoughts. Jimmy showed the direction of his when he broke the silence.

“Regardless of who’s right about Amelia, you  _ do  _ know what this means, right?”

“I’ve never understood it. Ever since we shared the same egg, you've always been too trusting,” Cas admonished.

“And you're not trusting enough!” Jimmy spit out. “Don't avoid the topic. You know I’m right, Cas. We have to leave. We’ve obviously been found out and sticking around will only increase the chances of harm or death coming to us or our friends.”

“No, not while you’re like this,” Cas said firmly. He sighed. “Even when we do, it’s getting harder to hide. Not just from the magical community, but from the mundanes as well. With all this technology around – “ Cas glared about the room at the monitors and the TV, Jimmy’s phone sitting on the table -  “the ease of information sharing... it’s  _ killing us _ . We’re having to move more and more often and I haven't stretched my wings in so long..."

“I know, Cas, I know,” Jimmy sighed. “You know what else this means?” Jimmy said more soberly than before. “We have to leave Dean.”

Cas’s stomach twisted unpleasantly and before he could stop himself, a growl burst from between his lips.

Jimmy grimaced. “I know, I know! I don’t like it either, but we agreed, Cas. We can't involve him any further than he already is. It isn't fair to him.”

“It won't be fair to him either when we disappear without a trace,” Cas pointed out.

“We can't exactly tell him what's going on... and he could be in danger. Do you want his death to be on your conscience?” Jimmy asked softly.

“Of course not...” Cas said, dropping into his seat and hunching over miserably.

Jimmy fumbled, reaching out for Cas and landing his hand on the top of Cas’s messy head. Cas leaned into the touch briefly before Jimmy let his hand drop to Cas’s shoulder and he squeezed. “At least we still have each other, Cas,” he said softly.

Tears pricked Cas’s eyes as he thought of how ungrateful he was to be mad that they had to move again when Jimmy was right. They were lucky to still have each other. The rest of their family had dispersed long, long ago, gone into hiding so deep that there was no way to keep in contact with any of them.

For all Cas and Jimmy knew, they could all be dead.

Neither of them wanted to face the idea that it was their refusal to part from each other that made it easier for them to be found each and every time.

 


	4. Chapter 3 - Spellworking

*~*~*~*~*DEAN~*~*~*~*~*

  


Armed with a name, and a possible motive, Sam started digging while Dean started making protection charms for the twins. He had no idea what was going on, but he was going to do all he could to keep them safe. The  _ trick _ was making it into something that wouldn’t be the least bit suspicious  _ and  _ also something that the twins would keep on them at all times.

What Dean wouldn’t  _ do  _ to get into their place unsupervised long enough to ward it against  _ everything. _

But that wasn’t even an option. The twins clearly didn’t want him there and he couldn’t guarantee they wouldn’t catch him if he broke in, not for the length of time he needed to do the job properly. And there was no way he was breaking their trust.

“Do they wear jewelry?” Sam asked.

Dean opened his mouth and closed it again, furrowing his brow. “Hmmm… yeah, actually, they do. They’re always wearing something.”

“Then that’s your answer. Turn the wards into charms – bracelets or necklaces or whatever. You can use the excuse of a get-well gift for Jimmy and uh…” Sam floundered.

“A sympathy for putting up with Jimmy for Cas?” Dean said dryly.

“You know best. If that would work, go for it.”

“A necklace would be easier but a bracelet would be… less obvious or weird. And possibly suit their style more,” Dean mused, used to thinking out loud when working on spells – especially with his brothers help.

“So how are you gonna put it together?”

“I’m thinking… something masculine and durable, so leather braiding and knots – I can treat and infuse the leather with a multitude of herbs.”

“You’ll need something more lasting than that. Bracelets will get more wear and tear and exposure to sweat and stuff.”

“Yeah… I’m thinking…” Dean cast his eyes about the workroom and they fell on a small, carved chest about the size of his fist. “Shinies.”

“What?”

“They like shiny things. What if I add ‘beads’ of various materials? It’ll appeal even more to their aesthetic and I can slip in real stones or glass beads with the right herbs implanted inside of them…” Dean said, rising from his chair enthusiastically and heading for the chest. He didn’t often work in beads – it was finicky work, such small things – but he had a small collection of small stone chips that he found useful from time to time.

“Yeah, that sounds like it could work. What are you thinking of using?”

“Let me catalogue what I have first. Hopefully, I have enough of the right things already that I don’t have to make a shopping list.”

“Hey, that’s what Charlie's for,” Sam pointed out.

Dean laughed. “True. She’s a wiz at finding the things we need even before we know we need them. I swear, she must have psychics in her lineage.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised.”

Opening the chest, Dean brought it back to his worktable and carefully dumped out the little beads and stones inside into a nearly flat, silver plate. They rolled about and he poked through them, running things through his head as he picked out a few of the pieces.

“I’m thinking… obsidian, black specifically, some labradorite maybe and some blue kyanite and turquoise,” Dean mused.

“Turquoise is powerful,” Sam said, “but if you’re looking at something they might wear, you need to balance the stones and the colors. If you have a jarring color shift, at best they may not  _ want  _ to wear it, at worst, they’ll be suspicious of your reasons for giving it to them. Dean…”

“Yeah, yeah, I remember all too well what happened last time someone found out I was a witch,” Dean muttered. His fingers moved through the stones as memories of Lisa and Ben ran through his head. She’d been hysterical, throwing Dean out without letting him explain anything.

And she hadn’t even known the whole truth.

“Dark turquoise chips,” Dean said. “Like smaller beads built around the other three. I can make the obsidian the bigger, central piece, flanked on either side by 2 smaller pieces each of the kyanite and the labradorite, with the turquoise broken into much smaller chips and running a border on either side – all matched with dark leathers – it should look pretty spiffy.”

“Hmm… that could work. You’ve got double protection against ill wishing and fixation, as well as a booster towards banishment if demons are truly involved – “

“Do you doubt my scrying?” Dean asked, in mock offense.

“I doubt anything using visions because the interpretations of them are so rarely right except as hindsight,” Sam corrected. “The kyanite further prevents manipulations and the like, another good protection against anything that might be demon involved, and the turquoise is just all around protection. Do you think that’s enough?”

“I sure hope so,” Dean said. “And for good measure, I’ll inscribe some runes and spells along the inside of the leather straps. They should look like pretty decorations and not a spell. I hope.”

“Well then, I’ll let you get to it. You’ve got your work cut out for you man. It’s going to take you a while. The twins won’t miss you while you’re holed up in the workshop?” Sam asked.

“Nah, they practically chased me away and Cas will be too busy worrying about his brother while Jimmy is too busy adjusting to being possibly permanently blind.”

“Why don’t you throw something for healing on there, too?” Sam asked after a moment of silence.

“I plan on it,” Dean said. “But I don’t know  _ anything _ that will cure blindness. Not even the old magic did that.”

“True,” Sam said.

“Have you found anything yet?” Dean pulled out his leatherworking tools and started to work on the bracelets.

Sam sighed. “Amelia is, as far as I can tell, a completely normal person. No ties to anything in the magical community. She was probably approached by a demon who took note of her obsession and thought to use it against her.”

“So… then I just need to find her and perform a normal exorcism, and everything should be fine?” Dean asked, his fingers never even stalling in their work.

“Should be, but I’d give the twins those protection charms just in case,” Sam suggested.

“Agreed.”

*~*~*~*~JIMMY~*~*~*~*~*

Finally, they were getting out of there. The doctors hadn’t wanted to release Jimmy, but other than his eyes, there was no real reason to keep him there.

His eyes, though, Jimmy was absolutely sure they were a lost cause. He swallowed back the lump in his throat. He’d been trying to keep a brave face for Cas, but the loss of his sight was overwhelming and he didn’t think he could keep it up much longer.

Not only had he lost one of his great joys, but he would now forever be a liability to his brother in their effort to stay off the radar.

Once word got out that one of them was blind…

There’d be no rest for them, he was sure.

Maybe he was being too pessimistic. It wasn’t normally his style, but their constant running was starting to weigh him down and with this on top of it… all Jimmy wanted to do was curl into a ball and cry. But he didn’t want to burden Cas any more than he already was.

The motion of the wheelchair stopped and hands pulled him up.

“Dammit, I can stand on my own,” he said irritably, swatting the hands away. “I don’t need to see to keep my balance.”

“Jimmy, Cas is just worried about you,” Dean’s voice said beside him.

“Dean? What are you doing here?” Jimmy asked in surprise. Hadn’t he and Cas already discussed keeping Dean out of their troubles?

“You’re my friend, Jimmy. You both are. You don’t think I wouldn’t come to at least give you guys a lift home?” Dean sounded hurt and Jimmy’s heart ached at having caused Dean pain.

“No, of course. I just didn’t expect…” Jimmy sighed. “I’ve been a bit out of it, I guess.”

No one argued him, Dean merely clapping him on his shoulder as Cas took hold of his arm and spoke softly, telling Jimmy where to go and when to turn.

Soon enough, Jimmy was ensconced in the back seat of the Impala with his brother beside him, the familiar smell of Dean’s car doing much to relax him. He slumped against Cas tiredly, just listening to the roar of the engine, to the voices of his brother and Dean.

Two beautiful men he’d never get to see again.

And if they truly had to leave, neither of them would ever have contact with Dean again either.

Jimmy had never expected to fall in love with anyone else other than Cas but somehow, he had. They both had. Dean had been endearing and wonderful and not like anyone else they’d ever known. When they were with him, all their worries had seemed so much farther away than usual.

Maybe it was that lull into complacency that had landed them here now?

“Jimmy,” Cas murmured, nudging Jimmy up. “We’re here.”

“Oh, already?” he asked. Had he been that lost in his own thoughts?

He climbed out of the car, hitting his head on the door frame on his way out. “Fuck,” he gritted out, holding a hand to his head.

“Is there anything else I can do for you guys?” Dean asked. He sounded anxious, nervous even.

“Thank you, Dean,” Cas said. “But no. I’m just going to take him upstairs and let him get some rest while I do some research.”

“Yeah, okay, yeah. Jimmy’s got a lot of adjusting to do, I guess,” Dean said. “Oh, hey, before I go, I got something for you guys. Kinda like a get well present for Jimmy but also, you’re twins and I thought you might like your own too, Cas.”

There was a rustle of fabric, then silence for a split second and then -

“Dean, no, these are beautiful and must have cost a fortune!” Cas protested.

“What is it?” Jimmy asked, curious, wishing he could see for himself.

“They’re just bracelets. And they didn’t cost me anything, really. I just made them outta stuff I had lying around. Thought you might like them.” Dean was speaking so sheepishly and nervous, that Jimmy could imagine him standing there, rubbing the back of his neck the way that he did sometimes.

“Just bracelets? They’re handmade leather with beadwork – wait, are those gemstones, Dean?” Cas asked. Jimmy sucked in a breath. If anyone would know at a glance, it would be Cas and Jimmy – gemstones were kind of a family thing.

“Uh, maybe? Look, it’s no big deal,” Dean insisted. “Think of it as several missed birthdays in one, since you never did tell me when yours was.”

Cas didn’t answer him, so Jimmy did.

“Thank you, Dean. Your gift, and your friendship means a lot to me, to both of us,” Jimmy choked out. “I wish I could see your gift, but knowing you, it’s more beautiful than I can imagine.”

“Here,” Dean said softly. “let me put it on you?”

“Of course,” Jimmy agreed, holding out his left arm. Something soft brushed his wrist gently, Dean’s warm fingers grazing him as he fixed the bracelet onto Jimmy’s arm before pulling back, and letting the soft leather drop flush to Jimmy’s skin.

“Your turn, Cas,” Dean offered.

Silence, then, “Thank you, Dean.”

“Right then, well, if you need anything, you know how to reach me,” Dean said.

With the thought that soon he and Cas might be gone and Dean out of reach for them forever, Jimmy surged forward to hug Dean, only Dean’s quick reaction keeping them from tripping as Jimmy fell blindly into his body.

He grabbed hold and hugged Dean tightly, tears pricking at his burning eyes, soaking the bandages that still covered them. That probably wasn’t good, but he couldn’t hold them back. “Goodbye, Dean. Thank you.”

Deans arms came up around him, tentatively at first, but then firmly pressing into his shoulder blades and the middle of his back. The touch was warm and comforting, the way only Cas’s ever was. He swallowed a sob and clung tighter for another moment before reluctantly letting go and back away a step, almost tripping as his heel hit the curb.

A hand on his elbow steadied him before letting go and then he heard his brother murmur, “Thank you, Dean. Your gift will be treasured, always.”

And Jimmy knew that this was it. Cas had made up his mind.

They wouldn’t be here much longer and this… this was goodbye.

 


	5. Chapter 4 - Ambushed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has a brief interlude that really doesn't get the chance to go anywhere. that is the most explicit this fic gets, which isn't really explicit  
> it also has a fight scene

*~*~*~*~*DEAN~*~*~*~*~*

Dean watched the twins walk slowly into the apartment building with a sudden and absolute certainty that he was never going to see them again.

That had felt way too much like goodbye.

The kind where people packed up and never returned.

And Dean should know. He and his family were all too familiar with the practice. But it was the first time he’d ever been on the other end of it.

It fucking sucked.

With a lead heart and heavy steps, Dean got back into the Impala and drove for home. At the very least, he’d managed to get them both to accept the bracelets, though it had been a near thing. Wherever they were going, they should be protected.

He just wished they weren’t leaving him behind.

Dean was only halfway down the road when another car passed him and a shiver ran through his body.

Demonic energy.

He slammed on his brakes and twisted about to look. Squinting, he thought he could make out Jimmy’s coworker, Amelia, but she was already too far away to get a clear look.

Turning the Impala around and cursing, for the first time, the loud roar of her engine – normally such a soothing, familiar sound – Dean followed long enough to see her parking in the lot he’d just left. Not wishing to be seen by her, or the demon inside of her, he pulled over to the side before he reached the apartments and watched, turning off the Impala.

She didn’t get out of the car, which was suspicious enough if he hadn’t already known there was something up. He fidgeted, slumping down so he’d be less likely to be seen by her should she glance his way. What was she – or the demon, anyway – up to?

A second car pulled alongside hers and a man got out and walked around to her car, knocked on the window and smiled. Amelia stepped out, and together they walked towards the apartments and Dean’s heart sank.

Backup. Two demons – one for each twin.

And Dean was powered down. He’d spent a lot of his energy on the scrying and the protection charms. He hadn’t expected multiple demons, having thought Amelia was just trying to get Jimmy to herself. For more demon to be involved, something else was going on, whatever Amelia’s original aims were.

She’d opened the way for the demons to come in. Regardless of what she wanted, they had their own mission. It didn’t matter if she regretted her actions. It was way too late for Amelia.

Dean just had to hope it wasn’t too late for the twins.

Thinking fast, Dean tried to come up with a plan. He couldn’t take two demons on by himself, not in his current depleted state, and the twins wouldn’t know what was going on. They wouldn’t be able to help all that much, especially with Jimmy…

Dammit, if only he’d been faster getting them their protection charms!

Without thinking about it, Dean stepped out of the Impala, breaking into a run. He reached the main door of the apartment and yanked, but it was locked. With a muttered word, he unlocked it, hearing the door click as a wave of dizziness swept through him.

This was stupid. There was no way he could do anything to help them.

Hell, if he wasn’t going to try, though.

He stepped through the door and tried to remember where their apartment was – he’d never been inside but he thought he remembered them talking about being on the ground floor, how sometimes, Cas would climb out his window to sit beneath it on the warm grass in the morning and tend to the flowers he wasn’t supposed to have planted there but did.

So ground floor. And morning meant eastward facing, so, one of those three apartments there.

Shouting came from the last door and Dean sprinted down the hall, skidding to a halt to find the door smashed inwards, splintered and mangled. He ducked inside the apartment, scanning about to find them.

Another shout drew him onward, through the living room, past the kitchen and bathroom till he stepped through the last door to the bedroom.  The single bedroom with a single bed, an idle part noticed before getting shoved aside for more important things.

Jimmy was on the bed, half naked and reaching after Cas blindly who was standing beside it in a similar state of undress – showing clearly the nonhuman parts of them. Their eyes glowed bright and they had little curving horns, silvery blue, wrapped back through the dark color of their hair. And their skin –

There were scales or markings or something along their flesh, thicker in some places than others, little feathers spattered them at odd intervals, white on Jimmy, black on Cas.

All in all, adding up to one single thing.

They weren’t human.

Now wasn’t that a kicker? But Dean had no time for that, after taking all of that in in a split second, he forced his eyes to move on to scanning the rest of the room and the current situation.

Before Dean stood the two demons and nobody, as of yet, had noticed he was there.

“Well, well, well,” the Amelia demon said. “Look what  _ we  _ finally caught. Our master will most  _ definitely  _ be pleased, and our reward will be great.”

_ Master? Who? Please not Alastair, _ Dean thought desperately.  _ That’s the last thing we need right now. _

“Please, Amelia, leave us alone,” Cas pleaded, his voice filled with a note Dean had never heard from him before. His eyes narrowed. Maybe Cas had a plan and he was buying time? Maybe he’d seen Dean enter the room, after all?

Dean glanced about, edging a little closer as he tried to figure out what he could do, as depleted as he was. The twins had the obsidian for banishment as the centerpiece of the bracelets, but they wouldn’t know to  _ use  _ it, and telling them would give him away, removing the element of surprise.

With demons, every edge you could gain counted.

But if he could move fast enough, they might not need to resort to the banishment spell. After all, he had the demon knife that had been passed down through his family tucked away in his boot.

He glanced between the demons. Which one should he go for first? He didn’t actually think it mattered and he  _ was  _ closer to the male demon. Bending over slowly, Dean reached into his boot to pull out the blade.

The soft  _ shhk  _ of the blade as it came free of its sheath cost him his surprise, as the demons both whirled to face him. Letting out a yell, he surged forward, plunging the knife into the male demons’ stomach.

The demons’ eyes flashed near blindingly, Dean – prepared for it - shading his eyes carefully. The demons’ scream cut abruptly short as the body he’d possessed slid to the ground.

Pulling the blade free, Dean spun about to face the Amelia demon but he was already too late. The knife was jerked from his hand by an unseen force. It flew across the room and under the bed and she stalked forward with a snarl.

“How dare you get in my way!” she screamed, her hand raising into the air and clenching, that same unseen force ripping into Dean’s body and blinding him with pain. He pushed feebly at his spellwork, willing his protection shields up but his magic sputtered and died in a spatter of pitiful sparks.

She laughed at the sight.

“You don’t have enough magic to fight me, little witch,” she mocked.

“Leave Dean alone!” Cas yelled.

She paused to glance back at the twins and Dean’s stomach clenched. Why had they called attention to themselves? Why hadn’t they tried to escape with the time he’d bought them?

“Don’t you worry. You two are next. I’ll finally get what I’ve wanted for  _ ages _ ,” she said with a gloating smile.

“Amelia, please, stop. This isn’t what  _ you  _ wanted,” Jimmy called out.

The demon laughed, chilling Dean to his core. They didn’t know. He had to warn them.

“She’s not Amelia anymore!” Dean shouted. “She’s been possessed by a demon. She opened the door –  Grrk!”

“Stop, talking,” she growled, flinging her arm out and sending him flying backward across the room. He hit with an impact that took his breath away, his vision swimming oddly.

But he wasn’t going to give up.

*~*~*~*~*Castiel~*~*~*~*~*

Cas led the way into the apartment, reluctantly leaving Dean behind. He’d accepted the bracelet, despite his misgivings over doing so, for the simple fact that he and Jimmy would be leaving, as soon as possible, and at least this way they’d have something of Dean’s to remind them of him.

If only they could give Dean something in return.

With a sigh, Cas guided Jimmy down to the end of the hall, Jimmy’s hand trailing along it, his mouth moving.

“What are you doing?”

“Counting steps? Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do when you can’t see?”

“I actually don’t know,” Cas admitted. “But what’s the point, anyway? We’re not staying here long enough for you to get familiar with it. As soon as we can pack the essentials and take an uber to the closest rental, we’re out of here, Jimmy.”

“It’s… it’s something that keeps my mind busy and off of… of things,” Jimmy said, as Cas let go of his hand to unlock their door, first running a hand over the invisible wards. They were unbroken and he let out a sigh of relief.

“It’s safe,” he said, gruffly, pushing the door open. Jimmy reached out for him and took his arm, following Cas inside. “We should start packing,” Cas said as soon as he closed the door behind him. It took every ounce of energy he had to say it. This was the hardest it had been leaving a place in a long time… and it was all because of Dean.

“Not yet,” Jimmy’s voice wobbled. “Please, Cassie? I just… a few minutes. Me and you…”

“Shhh, Jimmy,” Cas said, immediately grasping his shoulders. Jimmy fell into Cas then with a sound between a hiccup and a sob.

This wasn’t just hard for Cas, it was hard for Jimmy too. Add in the most likely permanent loss of his sight… Cas couldn’t even imagine how badly Jimmy must feel, how scared and lost. And if something happened to Cas, Jimmy would be extra vulnerable now.

So he’ll just need to make sure nothing happens to himself.

That would be easier said than done. It had taken both of them all these years to keep each other safe and now it would be just Cas.  At least until Jimmy adjusted and they figured out how he could go on from here, what he could do.

Gently, Cas steered Jimmy to their shared bedroom – reason one they could never have visitors, there would be too many questions from that glaring fact alone – and pressed him down to sit on the bed. Unable to pull away from Jimmy’s clinging arms, Cas toed off first his shoes, then Jimmy’s before climbing onto the bed beside him, pulling Jimmy to lay down in his arms.

Jimmy shook for a long time, his sobs muffled in Cas’s shirt. If Cas own tears made their way down his cheeks, no one else had to know. He took his own, shuddering breath, pulling Jimmy tight, his fingers gripping Jimmy’s clothes.

They’d lost their family so long ago, they were losing Dean now, too. He couldn’t lose Jimmy. Jimmy was the last bastion of his sanity, the last ray of hope that kept Cas going when he fell into darkness when the thought that it wasn’t worth running anymore ran through his head.

He couldn’t do this alone, and neither could Jimmy. Sometimes, it didn’t quite feel like enough, but where else could they turn? They’d had their one hope of true safety yanked out from under them far too long ago. Further back than anyone around them could possibly have suspected.

They’d been running a long time.

Finally, the tears and the sobs ran out, but they still clung to each other, both offering and taking mutual comfort. Jimmy tilted his head up and Cas nearly blanched at the sight of the bandages covering Jimmy’s eyes, a close-up reminder of everything that had happened the past few days.

“Please, Cas?” Jimmy whispered against his lips. Cas’s blood boiled and he surged forward the scant distance to seal their lips together in a desperate kiss.

Jimmy whimpered, fingers clenching in Cas’s shirt, legs shifting, dragging up the length of his own.

Light flared between them as their physical magics relaxed – the only magic they had any control over - and their skin rippled. It wasn’t the full change, but even letting pieces of their true selves out relaxed the strain upon their bodies, and after 2 days in the hospital, Jimmy had to be feeling it particularly badly.

Their bodies melted together as their small, spiral horns sprouted against their heads, as their human skin changed to soft, colored scales and tiny feathers. The feathers were more plentiful along their arms and climbing over the shoulders of their backs – not true wings, not in this form, but a hint of what they were.

The feathers were the byproduct of their father. There was no hiding, even among their mothers’ kind, marked as they were by the feathers that adorned leathery wings.

No one else but her offspring had wings like that.

Jimmy’s lips left his, trailing up Cas’s cheek until they touched one of the sensitive horns jutting out just above his ear. He mouthed at it and Cas shuddered.

He should stop this, now, they had to pack their things and get outta there, fast. A trip to the Emporium for some supplies the only stop they could risk before they left.

But as Jimmy’s fingers trailed under his untucked shirt, Cas gasped, his body arching, rubbing against Jimmy’s in such a way as to cause his brother to moan, the vibration of it against Cas’s horn nothing short of sinful.

Impatiently, Jimmy rucked Cas’s shirt up, tugging at it, whispering, “Off, Cassie. I need you.”

Breathing hard, Cas complied with his brother’s wishes, assuring himself that he wouldn’t let this go too far, that it was just to calm Jimmy down, give him something good before they abandoned everything they’d built here.

Cas’s mouth went dry when, as soon as Cas’s shirt was off, Jimmy’s hands moved to his own, whipping it off over his head without a second thought. His hands moving of his own accord, Cas’s fingers traced over Jimmy’s chest, exploring skin he already knew quite well, gasping as Jimmy ground against him, placing biting kisses along Cas’s shoulder and neck.

It wasn’t going to stop, Cas realized. They were too far lost in their need. Jimmy, was lost. He hated to end this, hated to take away what Jimmy needed, but they needed to stop. Every second they stayed here meant that danger grew ever closer.

“Mmmm… Cas, yeah,” Jimmy panted into his neck, rutting his hips into Cas’s. “God, I need you. Need to feel you. Can’t see you. God, I can’t  _ see  _ you,” Jimmy choked, his hands and hips growing desperate as he bit down on Cas’s collarbone and Cas couldn’t do it, couldn’t take this away from Jimmy, couldn’t -

There was a loud explosion, made louder from the backlash of all the wards failing as they were blown apart and Jimmy and Cas jerked apart in horror, guilt immediately flooding Cas. He shouldn’t have given in and listened to Jimmy. Their safety should have been their number one priority and they should have booked it as soon as they got back to the apartment.

It did no good to remind himself that not all that much time had passed since Dean had dropped them off and they still would have been inside when whoever it was came crashing through the door.

“Where are you, you little freaks?” A female voice growled, stalking into their apartment. Cas and Jimmy froze, their eyes wide with fear before Cas could remember  _ any  _ of their contingency plans and leapt up to activate them.

He was moving way too sluggishly for this, he realized, as he lunged off the edge of the bed, his fingers closing over a metal talisman on the nightstand and whipping it up, just as Amelia strode in, followed by a man Cas didn’t recognize.

“Well, well, well… Look what  _ we  _ finally caught. Our master will most  _ definitely  _ be pleased, and our reward will be great.”

“Please, Amelia, leave us alone,” Cas pleaded. He  _ knew  _ she wasn’t to be trusted but all the signs had said she was normal – human and magicless. What was going on?

Something caught his eye  – there’d been movement behind her. His eyes slid to the side, catching on… Dean?

_ No _ , he thought, his stomach twisting. All three of them were in danger now or… no, it couldn’t be Dean. He refused to believe that. Sweat beaded across his forehead as he activated the talisman - but it did  _ nothing.  _ Neither Amelia, Dean nor the man that had accompanied her reacted in any way.

_ No, no, no! _ Why wasn’t it working? How had everything gone so wrong, so fast? Was it a dud or was there something else going on?

And then Dean attacked the man and started shouting. Something about demons, Castiel realized, even as Amelia – no, Dean said she was a demon! – turned on Dean.

That explained why the talisman didn’t work. Not much affected Demons – but then, how had  _ Dean  _ killed the other?

How had Dean  _ known _ ?

“Cas? What’s going on? Is that Dean?” Jimmy whispered hoarsely.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Cas’s blood ran cold as the demon slammed Dean against the wall of his and Jimmy’s shared bedroom, abruptly cutting Dean off.

Dammit. Of all things - a demon! They’d been so worried about witches, that demons had never crossed their minds. They weren’t prepared for a demon. What were they going to do?

“You have to… banish it…” Dean gasped around the invisible hand holding him in place.

“We don’t have the tools!” Jimmy shouted back, despair tinging his voice. This was all Cas’s fault, for not listening to Jimmy and leaving when they had the chance. It all must be so much more terrifying for Jimmy, unable to see what was happening.

“Ob-si-dian,” Dean croaked. “Wrist.” And then his voice was cut off completely as the Amelia demon snarled.

What? Obsidian? Wrist? What was Dean talking about?

“Cas! Describe the bracelets,” Jimmy whispered.

Cas looked down at the leather and gem bracelets and it dawned on him. “Obsidian. Of course,” he gasped. “But the words – I don’t know the words to the banishment spell – do you?”

“Check the inside of the bracelets – there’s something inscribed in the leather, brother. I can feel it against my skin. Maybe… If Dean had the foresight to put the obsidian there, maybe… maybe Dean already  _ gave  _ us all the tools we need?” Jimmy suggested uncertainly.

Cas’s eyes widened and he quickly fumbled at the knots holding the bracelet in place. He turned it over and sure enough, Jimmy was right. There  _ was  _ spellwork etched on the inside – how had he not noticed it before?

To be fair, they’d only just received them in the last half-hour, but still… that had been enough time for Jimmy to notice it, so why hadn’t he?

Then again, perhaps the blindness was enhancing Jimmy’s other senses, suddenly undistracted by the visuals the rest of the world relied so heavily upon, and his attention to detail had always been fine, his art had always reflected that.

It was poor compensation for losing his sight, but right now, it was a boon.

Reading the words, Cas noted that there was more than one spell written there and he traced the letters with his fingers to determine which part was what he needed. There were spells of protection, wards to send an alarm if the wearer was injured and, yes, there it was. The banishment spell.

Wasting no more time, Cas began reciting the spell, grateful for his knowledge of Latin and Runes that allowed him to pick out what was what.

“Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus, omnis satanica potestas, omnis incursio infernalis adversarii –“

The demon shrieked, Amelia’s voice and face twisted beyond recognition as it whipped its head around to glare at Cas. He faltered under the malevolent gaze and Jimmy urged him on.

“That’s it, keep going Cas!”

The demon threw up its other arm to point at Cas and he ducked out of the way by rolling off the bed, dragging Jimmy with him, still reciting the words.

“- omnis legio, omnis congregatio et secta diabolica, ergo draco maledicte-”

She couldn’t attend to him without letting go of Dean and Cas had a feeling Dean was more than prepared to continue the spell if she came for Cas or Jimmy instead.

At least he hoped so.

He clasped the bracelet in his hand, the obsidian digging into his palm. He could hear her roaring and a thud and he knew she’d let Dean drop. She was coming for him now.

“-ut ecclesiam tuam secura, tibi facias libertate servire –“

He stood, ready to aim the stone at the demon and speak the last few words, but she was already there. Cas stumbled back, her hand grasping at his throat and cutting off his air instantly, the words freezing on his lips, his mouth moving, shaping the words, but nothing coming out.

Cas could see Dean scrabbling on the floor toward them, reaching under the bed, his lips moving, saying something Cas couldn’t hear.

But Jimmy could.

His brother stood, arm held out, the bracelet rotated so the obsidian stone-faced Amelia, and he shouted the words Cas had been unable to manage.

“-te rogamus, audi nos!"

Cas dropped to the floor instantly, coughing, Jimmy at his side, cradling him in his arms as Amelia went up in black smoke before her body fell all too limply on the ground.

Dead. Amelia was dead. He swallowed and stared. As much as he hadn’t liked her, he’d never wished such harm on her.

“You’re safe, Cas, you’re safe. We’re safe. She’s gone. They’re both gone,” Jimmy murmured.

Dean dropped to his knees beside them, worry and relief sharp on his face, sheathing the odd knife back into his boot, having retrieved it from under the bed.

“Are you okay?’

Cas coughed as he tried to speak and settled for nodding.

Letting out a breath of relief, Dean sagged forward. “Thank god.”

 


	6. Chapter 5 - Sanctuary

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is a shorter chapter, and all Jimmy

*~*~*~*~*JIMMY~*~*~*~*~*

Helping each other out of the apartment, the three of them limped over to the Impala and crawled inside, slumping exhausted against the cold leather seats.

Hard breathing was the only thing that could be heard for a few, long moments before Cas spoke and broke the silence.

“Are we going to talk about the elephant in the room?” he asked.

“Don’t you mean car?” Jimmy joked tiredly. “Can’t this wait, Cas?”

“No, it can’t Jimmy. Dean’s a  _ witch _ ,” Cas bit out. Jimmy winced at the word.

“So?” Dean bit back. “You’re not exactly normal yourselves. What’s the big deal?” he asked, hurt and confusion and resignation mingling in his voice.

“You really don’t know?” Jimmy asked.

“Dude, I got no fucking clue. You’re not human, nor the least bit surprised to find out witches exist, so you’re in the know. Your problem is that  _ I’m  _ a witch and… I don’t see why that’s a problem.”

“Dean, every instinct we have is telling us to run right now,” Cas said gravely, all anger drained from his voice and just as tired sounding as Jimmy felt.

Jimmy nodded. “The only reason we haven’t is because it’s  _ you _ ,” he said softly.

There was a rustle of fabric and Dean sighed. “I guess we got a lot to figure out, but first things first. We need to get someplace safe and recover.”

“You don’t think it’s over, do you?” Jimmy asked, his gut twisting.

“I don’t know, but I’d rather not take any chances. Don’t know about you, but I can’t go another round with a pixie, much less another demon right now. I was already running low on reserves before all this.”

Jimmy bit his lip for the briefest of seconds before making up his mind. He reached forward, ignoring Cas’s sharp, “Jimmy!” and laid his hand across the back of the leather seat, following it up to Dean’s shoulder. He imagined his core and the energy that slept there, imagine a piece break off and flowing down his arm, through his fingertips and into Dean.

He knew he was successful by Dean’s gasp and Cas’s low, “Oh, Jimmy…”

“So now what?” Jimmy asked, ignoring his brother’s disapproval. “Where do you suggest we go?” Jimmy asked.

“Well, my suggestion is to go back to my place. With the workshop there and all the wardings, it should be safe, and hopefully no one would think to look for you there,” Dean suggested.

“You want us to willingly walk into a witch’s den? Do you know what you’re asking us?” Cas asked.

“Actually, no, I don’t. I still don’t know what you are or why you’re so against witches,” Dean said exasperatedly, his hand coming down hard on the steering wheel of the car. Dean must be pretty upset to abuse his beloved car like that. “I’m just trying to think of someplace safe and the options in this shit town are few.” He paused. “Except… maybe the Emporium?”

“Charlie and Balthazar’s shop?” Jimmy asked in surprise.

“Yeah, they’re fae – their place would be even safer than mine  _ and  _ they’d be a neutral party if you really can’t trust me,” Dean said bitterly.

“Dean, it’s not that we don’t trust you,” Cas admitted. “But we’ve had some bad experiences with witches before. Until we can all sit down and have a talk, I don’t think any of us  _ really  _ know where we stand.”

“Let’s go to the Emporium,” Jimmy said softly. “We can’t just stay here and keep arguing about this and Dean’s right. The fae are neutral, and I think Charlie and Balthazar suspect about us anyway, and yet we’ve remained safe here until Amelia. It may be our best choice, for now.”

“Fine,” Castiel agreed.

“Fine,” Dean sighed, staring up the car. The Impala roared to life and made Jimmy wish he could spread his wings and fly.

He didn’t think he could ever do that again.

Suddenly weary, the rumble and motion of the car soothing him, Jimmy let himself fall against Cas and soon enough, he was asleep.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Voices woke him, the slamming of a door and Cas nudging his ribs.

“Come on, brother,” he said softly. “Let’s get inside and away from prying eyes.”

“Mmmph,” Jimmy groaned. Cas helped Jimmy out of the car, keeping him from hitting his head this time as he stepped out, and Jimmy stiffened when another set of arms wrapped around him.

“Oh my gosh! I was so worried about you both! I  _ knew _ something bad was going on and I just  _ knew  _ it had something to do with the three of you…!” Charlie’s voice was breathy as she spoke into his ear and Jimmy relaxed into the familiarity of it.

“We’re fine. Dean saved us.”

“There was just as much saving in the other direction,” Dean said. “I think none of us would have gotten out of there if we hadn’t worked together.”

“Like I said, the  _ three  _ of you. Well, come on! Let’s get you all inside and upstairs,” Charlie said, her voice bubbling as she linked an arm with Jimmy’s and led the way. The tinkle of a bell signified a door opening and then Balthazar’s voice rolled out.

“Well, well, well, look what the cat dragged in,” he tsked. “It’s gonna take forever to unruffle  _ those  _ feathers.’

Jimmy froze, tugging Charlie to such a sudden stop that she squeaked in surprise.

“What, you didn’t think we knew?”

“You never said – “ Cas’s voice was hoarse.

“I know self-imposed witness protection when I see it, and I know why you resorted to it,” Balthazar said dryly. “You’re not the first I’ve seen, though it’s been a while.”

“The first  _ what?”  _ Dean called out plaintively.

“Wait, who have you seen?” Jimmy asked. “How long ago?”

“Upstairs first,  _ then  _ revelations,” Charlie said firmly. “Now march!”

Jimmy followed her lead up the stairs, hearing Cas, Dean and Balthazar clomping up beside them – Dean most of all with those heavy boots he liked to wear.

Charlie fussed about the room, getting them all settled and doing who knew what. Jimmy strained his ears, but couldn’t pick up enough clues through the noise of other people and soft music playing from across the room.

“I’ll go and keep an eye on the shop,” Balthazar said. “If you need me, let me know. And you three? Behave.”

“You’re telling  _ me  _ to behave?” Dean asked, choking on a laugh. “Now I’ve seen everything.”

“Not yet, you haven’t,” Balthazar chuckled and Jimmy heard his footsteps receding down the stairs.

Before anyone could say anything else, Dean’s phone rang. Jimmy heard him curse, but he was pretty sure that was the ringtone reserved for Dean’s brother.

“Hey, Sam, you’re on speaker but uh, now’s not the best of times.”

“Dean, thank god, you gotta get out of town,  _ now _ .”

Jimmy sat up straighter, his hands flexing over his jeans anxiously. Now what?

“Why? Sam, it’s over. We got the demon and banished it,” Dean protested.

“Because it’s  _ not over.  _ More are on their way right now,” Sam said.

Jimmy’s skin prickled, a sense of foreboding washing over him. He tilted his head and listened.

“Cas,” he called out, “Something's coming.”

“What did you hear, Sam?” Dean asked, his voice moving about the room like he was pacing worriedly. Jimmy understood that. His gut roiled and he longed to cling to Cas for comfort. A shift brought someone in contact with him, a hand caught his own as Cas gave him what little they could without any privacy. They both stilled and listened to Dean’s conversation.

“Alastair. We caught one of his lieutenants messing around out here and she was bragging that things were going to change, that the demons would have  _ all  _ the power now, finally. Whatever’s going on, Dean, whatever your boyfriends are – “

“They’re not my – “ Dean protested, Jimmy’s stomach twisting at his denial even though his words were true.

“I don’t care. You’re in danger, you’re all in danger. The demons want them,  _ bad. _ And they won’t care who’s standing in the way. You know how Alastair is. Pontiac could be swarming in demons any second. You have to get out of there. Grab ‘em and go, but get the hell out of there.”

“Too late,” Jimmy whispered as a sense of dread filled him, the prickling along his arms increasing tenfold. It was a new sensation, or one magnified in ways it never had been, he wasn’t sure, but his certainly that it was too late was all too clear.

“Oh my god,” Charlie said.

“What? What’s going on? Dean?” Sam’s voice called over the phone tinnily.

“The sky just turned black,” Dean choked.

“It’s midday, Dean,” Sam said in horror. “We’re on our way. Where are you holed up? Tell me you’re someplace safe?”

“Yeah, yeah, we’re at the Emporium. Probably the safest place in Pontiac, if I don’t miss my guess.”

“Good. Right. I’ll let the others know.” Sam’s voice dropped so low, Jimmy almost missed it. “And Dean? Be careful. If Alastair figures out who you are – “

“Shut up, Sam. I know,” Dean bit out.

Jimmy blinked.  _ Wait, what? _

“But this could be our chance to fix things – if we could take out Alastair permanently, if he’s finally showing his face above ground, we can cut the head off the snake once and for all,” Dean argued.

“It’s too dangerous. We’re not ready.”

“It’s been a long time Sam. At this rate, we’re never going to be ready. We may just have to take our chance.”

“Don’t do anything rash, Dean,” Sam implored.

“No promises, Sam,” Dean said, hanging up.

“How many secrets are you keeping from us?” Jimmy asked. “What else are you hiding? What’s going to happen if Alastair finds out who you are? Who  _ are  _ you, really?”

“Yeah, Dean, why don’t you tell ‘em?” Charlie suggested.

Cas’s hand tightened around Jimmy’s. This entire day was a roller coaster and he didn’t know how much more the two of them could take. Dean’s footsteps froze at Charlie’s question.

“You  _ knew _ ?” Dean’s voice was incredulous. “This whole time?”

“Of course I did.” She stood, the rustling of fabric swishing away and towards the stairs. “I’ll leave you all alone to talk. Teas just about ready. I’m going to warn Balthazar and strengthen the wards.”

“Who are you, Dean?” Cas demanded as soon as her footsteps faded away.

Dean sighed. “The names not Dean Smith, but Dean… of Winchester.”

Jimmy and Cas gasped in near unison. “Winchester?” Cas asked hoarsely. “The Winchesters are all dead. Have been for centuries. The line died out when – “

“When Alastair declared war on the kingdom, yeah. But one got away and we’ve been in hiding ever since.”

“I remember the stories. Winchester Kingdom is –  _ was  _ \- a magic haven and neutral ground, a repository of all magical knowledge – “ Jimmy said wistfully.

“And sits on top of the most powerful node of magic ever found,” Cas said in awe.

They’d both grown up on the stories, but their mother had never seen the necessity of going there, preferring to raise her clutch with other dragons, despite how different they were than everyone else. But then they’d grown – or  _ not _ grown, as the case happened to be - into their powers and they had become hunted.  With witches greedy for the power hidden in their cores, they’d had to go into hiding for the very first time. His brothers and sisters and he had decided to make their way to Winchester for safety, but before they could get there, disaster had struck it.

“When Alastair attacked, the Winchesters had just enough warning to evacuate the people and smuggle the heir out of the kingdom and lock the door behind them. The rest died in the onslaught, barely able to pull off one last banishing before the door to the kingdom was sealed. He wants you to unlock the kingdom,” Jimmy said. “You’re the key.”

“Yeah, as first born, I’m the goddamn key to the kingdom,” Dean said, raking his hand through his hair.

“But you’re not just a witch, you’re a Winchester. Your line was powerful, you can  _ easily _ take out Alastair, one on one,” Jimmy said excitedly.

“No, we can’t. Firstly, it’s  _ never _ one on one – Alastair would never fight that fair – and secondly, we’ve been cut off from our source of power for centuries. Our gifts have been waning steadily ever since.”

“That’s what you meant when you told Sam you’d never be ready,” Cas noted shrewdly. He stood at a sound across the room that made Jimmy jump, leaving Jimmy in his seat, feeling cold without his presence by his side.

“Yeah. With every passing generation, we get weaker, and I’m tired of running and hiding. Either Alastair finally gets taken out, or the line ends now and he’ll never get what he wants.” Dean’s voice was… Jimmy frowned, trying to interpret and wishing he could  _ see  _ Dean’s expressions, his body language. He’d been  _ good  _ at reading those things and it was frustrating to have to do without.

“I can’t believe the stories are true,” Cas breathed out. Jimmy knew what he meant. That a Winchester was still alive… maybe safe haven could still happen?

“Well, now you know,” Dean said. “You know that I’m a witch and a Winchester and that your lives are probably in twice as much danger with me around. What about you? What are you and why are you so afraid of witches, and why does a demon want you so bad?”

Jimmy itched to exchange glances with his brother. To curl up into him for comfort the way they did when in the privacy of their own home and they felt free enough to be themselves, in so many ways. He nearly held his breath as he waited to see what Cas would do.

Fingers crept back into his and gave him a reassuring squeeze. They pulled away again and Jimmy almost whined until a hot cup was pressed carefully into his hand. Oh, that’s what Cas had been doing.

“It’s…” Cas started and stopped again. “You understand we’ve been hiding for so long, it’s hard to just  _ tell  _ someone.”

Jimmy nodded. “We never have, before. You’re the first.”

“I’d say take your time…” Dean trailed off, his boots hitting the floor with a thud as he walked away from the twins, probably to the window overlooking the street. “But I’m not sure how much we have.”

“Right, right,” Cas took a deep breath. “What we are doesn’t even have a proper name. There’s not actually all that many of us, even if we’ve all survived.”

“We’re hybrids,” Jimmy said, swallowing. “Our mother was a dragon – one of the lucky ones who could change her shape – and our father was…” What he was about to say was so out there, he just knew Dean would never believe them. “He was an angel.”

“Holy fuck,” Dean whispered. “You guys are  _ real _ ?”

“You’ve heard of us?” Jimmy blurted.

“Of course he’s heard of us,” Cas groused. “He’s a  _ witch _ . And witches have been hunting us for  _ centuries _ .”

“You… you… seriously? You guys are older than the closing of Winchester Kingdom. I heard stories that…” Dean paused. “Wait, wait… I think… this is all connected.”

“What do you mean?” Jimmy asked.

“It’s all garbled now, of course, but there were rumors that you and your family were coming to Winchester. Then Winchester was attacked and we lost everything. Alastair had tried before, but somehow he’d gotten the entirety of the demon host behind him for the first coordinated demon attack in the whole of history. Nobody knew what had brought them all together but…”

“You think it was us? That we caused your kingdom to fall?” Jimmy’s heart sank. If that were true, then Dean would want nothing to do with them. It had been their fault his whole family was on the run.

Could this day get any worse? If they got out of this, surely Dean would want nothing to do with them… unless it was to use them. No, he refused to believe that Dean, witch or not, would do that to them.

 


	7. Chapter 6 - Accidental Confessions

*~*~*~*~*DEAN~*~*~*~*~*

“Wait, wait, wait a second,” Dean held up his hand, his mind whirling. “The stories all say you and your family are like… walking nodes of power… and that’s why everyone wants you so bad, but I don’t feel any magic on you at all!”

“Good,” Cas breathed, his body sagging in relief. “That means they found us by pure chance.”

He looked down at his lap, at the mug in his hands and sighed. “Enochian wards, the language of our father. It hides us, and our magic, from casual contact and all but the strongest of scrying spells. It’s not perfect, and we have to keep renewing them to keep the strength of it up because the dragon part of us tends to absorb magic.”

“But if you have so much magic, why don’t you use it to protect yourselves?” Dean asked. “That’s something I never understood from the stories. I always felt like something was missing.”

“That’s just it, Dean,” Jimmy said softly, resigned. “We  _ can’t. _ That’s why we’re so vulnerable. We can’t tap into that magic at all. Only one of our brothers ever managed it. And all he managed was to make the cheapest, smallest illusions he could and the effort gutted him for days afterward. He kept trying, so hard…”

Jimmy made a sound and Cas set down his mug, wrapping Jimmy into a tight hug that made Dean ache at the closeness of it.

“We almost lost him, it was so bad,” Cas confided as he comforted Jimmy. “It was so long ago, but the… the pain of it was… it’s lingered all this time. We were all close, our brothers, sister and us, and it’s been wrenching that we don’t even know if any of them are still alive.”

“Jesus,” Dean said. The idea that he and Sam could be separated and never have contact with each other, never know if the other was alive or dead, was horrifying, and to magnify that several times over, for every sibling they had and to live with that for so damn long…

He stood and looked out the window again. The sky had returned to normal, but the damage was done. The demons were here, had taken their hosts and were hunting them all down as they sat here talking.

How close they were to being found, Dean had no idea, but he knew the demons wouldn’t hold to the rules of neutral ground – hell, Alastair had proved that when he attacked Winchester - and that being here was bringing danger to Charlie and Balthazar.

Finding out what Jimmy and Cas were… it was no wonder Alastair was after them.

And the witches… most witches weren’t the kind that would chase the twins down like they obviously had been, but there were definitely those unscrupulous enough to do so, just like any other people out there, bad eggs hiding with the rest.

But that was a problem for another time. Alastair and his demons could be here any time. Sam and whoever he brought along for backup could be way too late. They needed to think of a way out of this,  _ now _ , and Dean’s reserves were, well, not quite as bad as they were before Jimmy did his little trick, but still bad.

And now Dean knew what he’d done, but he couldn’t ask for another boost. It would prove all their fears right. Dean wiped a hand down his face.

"God, there are so many more questions I want to ask you, but now is so not the time."

"Agreed," Cas said in those gravelly tones that were so unlike Jimmy's. “Dean, normally we run. We don’t fight. We’re always outnumbered. Without magic, even if we were to shift… there’s no  _ room  _ here to do so. What do we do?”

Dean sighed, raking a hand through his hair, his mind whirling. What did they have going for them right now?

A depleted witch, the twins who couldn’t access their own magic, two Fae and a shop full of magical odds and ends.

There had to be something – at least something that could buy them time.

He spun about. “Your Enochian wards – could we use them here? On this place?”

“I don’t see why not,” Cas said slowly. “You want to hide the shop?”

“Among other things. We can also paint devils’ traps in case they find it anyway. Tricking them to step inside one is a whole other story but if we can…” Dean said.

“We might hold out till reinforcements arrive,” Jimmy said, smiling. He pulled at his shirt, yanking it up and Dean swallowed and stuttered at the sight.

“Uh… w-what are you doing?” he asked, turning red.

“Dean, face it, I’m pretty useless right now. The least I can do is be a walking canvas and show off the warding,” Jimmy said. “Cas can do it in his sleep. So could I if I could see, but I can’t. And with two of you, we can get this place covered faster.”

*~*~*~*~*CASTIEL~*~*~*~*~*

Everything was going far too fast for Cas to process, but the things he clung to were – his and Jimmy’s lives were in danger and Dean had saved them.

Dean was a witch – but he was also a Winchester.

Perhaps far removed from those Cas and Jimmy had hoped to seek asylum with, but a Winchester nonetheless. That had to count for something, right?

And Balthazar – when all this was over, Cas  _ needed  _ to talk to Balthazar. The chance that he had seen one of their brothers or sister was too high to pass up. It had been so long since Cas or Jimmy hadn’t been so alone.

Dean was a witch.

Cas’s mind kept circling back to that fact.

How strange was it that he and Jimmy had believed Dean to be a normal person, a mundane, when all along he was a witch? That they couldn’t grow close to Dean because they couldn’t afford to drag him into their chaos when he’d been thinking the same damn thing in reverse.

Still. A witch.

Cas looked at their friend, the man they’d both fallen in love with despite their best intentions, and couldn’t believe it. He looked and acted nothing like those witches that had hunted them throughout their lives. He always had this comfortable sereneness about him that instantly put them at their ease. A joy of life and a – not an innocence, perhaps, but something childlike at times that always seemed to bring a smile to Cas’s face.

And then there were the other times that set his blood boiling and it was everything he could do to keep his hands to himself.

To keep his hands off a witch.

How on earth had this happened? Falling in love with a witch? The one thing they tried to stay as far away from as they could, and here they were, pining uselessly after a witch who had never shown the slightest interest in return.

“Cas?” Jimmy knocked his shoulders as he groped blindly forward. “Is everything okay?”

Cas grunted. “We’re trapped with no hope of escape, we’re in love with a witch, and we have no hope of winning.”

“You’re in love with me?” Dean’s voice was shocked and Cas’s head shot up, eyes going wide.

“Oh fuck,” he breathed, the brush he’d been painting the wall with falling from his suddenly nerveless fingers. He had forgotten, for an instant, that Jimmy couldn’t see and that he’d last been with Dean. “I’m… I’m so sorry. You weren’t supposed to know – “ he gulped as jimmy’s hands closed over his arm, pinching tightly, as anxious as Cas was right now.

But Dean didn’t look angry, or shocked, he looked… hopeful.

“Both of you?” he asked, voice so unexpectedly timid and his eyes darting between them. Cas thought he might have stopped breathing as he waited for their answer.

Jimmy, still clinging to Cas, trembled, his grip turning painful on Cas’s arm.

Castiel closed his eyes briefly. It couldn’t get any worse at this point to put the full truth out there. Dean would need to know regardless. Cas and Jimmy would never be able to keep them secret from Dean.

Taking a bracing breath, Cas opened his eyes and stared into Dean’s green ones, searching for signs as he said, “Yes. Both of us, for a long damn time. But you - ?”

Deans’ fingers reached for the collar of his shirt, pulling it away and drawing something out – a pendant, Cas realized. It was a small glass vial on a silver chain

“What is that?” Cas asked, failing to see the importance of it.

“Witch Hazel. And… a few other things, but mostly that. Not that it stopped me from falling for you – both of you – but I couldn’t allow myself to put you in danger. So as you hid yourselves…” Dean gestured at the two, towards the tattoos on their skin, hidden now as they’d been before, by their clothes.

“You hid your feelings with magic aid?” Cas asked slowly.

“Your feelings were that strong that you had to resort to  _ magic _ ?” Jimmy asked, awe touching his voice. “Even though it would be a drain on you, you spent what little magic you could access on  _ that _ ?”

Dean swallowed. “I mean, it wasn’t like I stood a chance, right? I’d fallen in love with  _ both  _ of you – even if there’d been no danger, how could I choose between you? It was doomed from the start, and I wanted no pity. Didn’t want to lose your friendships because you were disgusted by me.”

“And why would we be?”

Dean blinked. “Well, because… I… and… and both of you. It’s just… it’s just not done. I should have been able to choose just one, not… not…” His face turned red as he floundered and Cas grinned wickedly.

“Dean, have you  _ fantasized  _ about us? Being with you? At the same time?”

Jimmy caught on to what Cas was saying real quick and he straightened, smirking in Dean’s direction.  “Don’t avoid the question, Dean.” He stepped forward, not needing to go far since Dean had just brought him there, and he reached for Dean. His hand smacked into Dean’s chest and he slid it up to cup his jaw. “Did you dream of us, tangled together?” he whispered.

Cas saw panic, hope, uncertainty and so much more flitter across Dean’s face as he froze in the wake of Jimmy’s unexpected advance. Dean made a small sound, a whimper, before nodding, gulping and finally croaking out an answer.

“Yes.”

“Good. Because the number of times we’ve dreamed of you, have imagined what it would be like if you joined us, has gone beyond ridiculous,” Jimmy said, stepping even closer, till his body pressed against Dean’s.

Dean’s eyes blew wide as the implications of Jimmy’s words filtered through him and Cas chuckled at the dumbfounded – though, he was pleased to note, not horrified – expression on his face.

Cas couldn’t let Jimmy have  _ all  _ the fun, though. He stood, brushing his hands down his pants legs and moved the scant distance needed to join Dean and Jimmy, sliding off to the side so he could hold a hand on Jimmy’s waist, giving it an approving squeeze, as he leaned over to whisper in Dean’s ear.

“When this is all over, if we survive, we have a  _ lot  _ to talk about,” Cas said, letting a bit of growl enter his voice and watching Dean shudder from it. He smiled, pleased with Dean’s reaction.

They might actually have hope for the future if they could just get past this little roadblock.

“I hate to break up this wonderful ménage trois,” Balthazar drawled. “But if I’m not mistaken, we have uninvited party crashers on their way here, right now. So perhaps we should all, I dunno, get back to work?”

Dean sprang away, face red as he tripped backward. Jimmy stumbled at the suddenness of Dean’s withdrawal and Cas reached out to catch his brother before he could fall.

Clearing his throat, Dean nodded. “Right, right. I’ll just be…” he backed up a step and knocked into one of the small display tables, nearly knocking it over as he hastened to catch it and straighten it before disappearing further into the store.

Balthazar chuckled. “Well, he’s easily flustered,” he said. “You two are going to have a lot of fun with  _ that  _ one.”

“You bet,” Jimmy smirked. Balthazar left with another chuckle and a shake of his head, leaving Cas and his brother alone for the first time since the demons attacked.

And they hadn’t had much alone time then either, having just gotten back from nearly 3 days in the hospital.

“Is this really happening, Cas?” Jimmy asked.

“Yes. But Balthazar’s right. It won’t be if we don’t get a move on.”

Jimmy nodded. “Right. Let’s get back to work. What can I do?”

 


	8. Chapter 7 - Confrontation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As you can tell from the title, the Big Showdown in this chapter!!! so expect a bit of violence here.

*~*~*~*~*DEAN~*~*~*~*~*

Dean had just finished painting the last of the Devils traps when the door to the Emporium blew open on its hinges. Seven figures strode in and Dean's blood ran cold as he recognized Alastair.

Alastair walked through the demon traps like they were nothing, Dean slowly reaching into his boot for the demon blade with a pounding heart. With a sneer, Alastair snapped his fingers and Charlie gasped behind him while they all watched, frozen in horror, as the wooden floor splintered, destroying the traps and leaving the rest of the demons free to attack.

Mouth dry, Dean finished pulling the knife and lunged at Alastair.

Alastair didn’t even blink. He twitched a finger and sent Dean flying through the air, crashing through one of the glass display cases, the knife skittering away in the debris. Cas helped him up, the five of them clumping together for solidarity, bracing themselves for the worst.

But the demons didn’t move forward. Alastair held his hand up to stop them with a wicked and sly grin, His eyes flickering white as he looked them up and down.

Dean shuddered at the look, his skin crawling when Alastair began to talk, his nasally voice scraping Dean’s nerves raw.

“My, my, look at you, all huddled together in fear of little old me. Looks like the long search is finally over… both of them.” Alastair stared at them all and snickered. “I just can’t decide which of you to go after first – one of the abominations I’ve been hunting forever, or the Winchester I’ve been hunting for almost as long.”

_ Oh god, he knows _ , Dean thought, eyes going wide. Something pressed into his hand, hidden from view behind Cas’s back. By the familiar weight and feel of it, he knew it was his knife. Balthazar or Charlie must have recovered it somehow. Was it just within reach, or had they used magic? Dean hadn’t felt any, but would he have if they used some sort of fairy magic he wasn’t familiar with?

A dark-haired demon stepped up to Alastair and pointed at Cas. “I want  _ that  _ one.”

Dean growled, flexing his fingers over the knife. “You’re not touching  _ any  _ of them!”

“Is that right?” Alastair’s brow rose in amusement. “Meg, you can have him but  _ don’t!”  _ He whirled on her, brandishing a finger in her face. “Don’t kill him. Or his brother. And leave Dean to me.”

“Sure, whatever you say,” Meg said, smirking. She advanced on them, strolling like it was a walk in the park. “Not killing them? Isn’t a hardship for me. I want to make them  _ hurt _ .”

Cas tensed against Dean, and Dean’s mind raced. He was too depleted for anything offensive. The boost Jimmy had given him was enough to keep him going but… no, maybe he could…

Biting his lip, Dean threw a hand up in the air, channeled what power he could to his hand and curled his fingers into claws. He hissed out a word and made a slashing motion in the air. Alastair and Meg both sidestepped easily, but Dean managed to catch one of the hapless underlings behind them, shredding the demon into pieces.

It wouldn’t kill him but demons didn’t heal the bodies they took. They kept them going despite the damage. A headless corpse was useless to them, and the demon smoked out, looking for another host.

All it did was buy them time. But at least they were down a demon now.

Then Alastair reached him, and Dean had no time to think of anything else but the demon who’d caused it all. The fall of Winchester, the loss of Dean’s parents and so much more. He shoved forward with the demon blade, Cas shouting as Dean left the questionable safety of the huddle.

Alastair was the biggest threat here, the big power, the ringleader. Maybe he should have used the knife on the others to even the odds, but Alastair was here, before him now and Dean had to take the opportunity as it was brought. Alastair had brought too much destruction and chaos – not just to Winchester.

Stabbing forward, Dean was elated for a split second until he realized there was no sparking sizzle of a demon’s light going out. He slowly looked up, Alastair pressing close and grabbing Dean by the chin.

“You’re gonna have to try a whole lot harder than that, _ son _ ,’ Alastair growled gleefully, tossing Dean across the floor of the shop, all while that damn knife – they’re only proved demon killing weapon – was still stabbed into his flesh.

Dean skidded across the floor, heart pounding when he smacked against the wall. He shoved himself back to his feet, wiping at his mouth with the back of his hand, the coppery taste proving to be blood.

He wasn't surprised. This fight was  _ not  _ going well for them. Like, at all. His eyes darted about the Emporium, trying to take stock of the situation quickly.

A random demon was closing on Jimmy as the weakest link. Meg was squared off against Cas, just like she’d wished, unable to kill him due to Alastair’s orders, but gleefully keeping him occupied with blow after blow to keep him from going to Jimmy's rescue. The last three demons were taking on Charlie and Balthazar -

Leaving Alastair for Dean.

He stalked forward, each slow, unconcerned step filled with menace and glee.

Dean looked about him in despair. The demon blade had done  _ nothing  _ to Alastair.   _ Nothing.  _ The demon traps hadn’t either. But the banishment spell – Jimmy and Cas still had their bracelets on with the obsidian, if Dean could reach Jimmy…

It would still only delay things for a while but that was as good as he could come up with.

He lunged for Jimmy who was shifting somewhat, right there in the store. The clothes covered most of the changes, but the horns grew, curling in and under his hair, his skin shone as he moved, the fluorescent lights pinging off – off what, scales? – and his hands curling in then spreading out and wide and – and sharp.

Claws.

Relief spread through Dean. Jimmy wasn’t defenseless either, but he could tell neither friend nor foe in his current state and the demon in front of him knew it.

“Jimmy!” Dean shouted, ducking Alastair. “Demon, just in front of you!”

“Now, now, Dean, we can’t have you helping the blind little monster, can we?” Alastair sneered, grabbing Dean by the throat before he could duck again. He slammed Dean against a bookcase, the books falling about his head.

Dean’s vision sparked around the edges, his eyes sliding towards Jimmy who had – unnoticed by anyone else – actually managed to dispatch his demon the same way Dean had the first one. Now he was groping forward, towards Dean, following Dean’s gasping breaths as he struggled to breathe.

Panicking, Dean looked back at Alastair and grabbed at the hand on his throat, pushing power through – a wave of dizziness washing over him as he dragged up the dregs of his magic to do it – and pulled with magically increased strength.

Alastair let go with a frown, Dean dropping to the ground, gasping.

“If this is how strong you are when cut off from your family’s source of power, it’s no wonder it took so long, and so many demons, for me to roust you out,” Alastair commented calmly. “But in the end, you’re no match for me, Dean.”

“Dean!” Jimmy shouted, mere feet away now.

“No, stay back!” Dean croaked. When would Sam and the others  _ get  _ here?

“Use me, Dean,” Jimmy called out.

“No!” Dean spat out. He wasn’t like them, the witches that haunted and hunted the twins down. He had to prove that. He’d seen the fear and distrust in Cas’s eyes, on Jimmy’s face, when they realized he was a witch too.

Alastair’s eyes narrowed. “Oh no, you don’t!”

“Don’t be a fool, Dean!” Cas yelled as he grappled with Meg. “We’re all gonna die here unless you…” he slipped and grunted and Dean felt fear ring through him.

Alastair was reaching for him again. “No one but  _ me  _ gets to use those monsters!” he spat out, grabbing for Dean. Dean jerked out of his grasp and rolled away, away from danger and closer to Jimmy.

Bringing Jimmy closer to the danger, the last thing Dean wanted to do.

“Okay, Jimmy,” Dean panted. “Do it.”

Jimmy reached out, his claws gone, thank god, and grabbed Dean’s ankle after a few false tries and then –

And then power flooded into Dean so fast and strong that he gasped. He’d never felt this much raw power before and he wasn’t sure what to do with it. It burned through his veins and he pushed at it, pushed it down towards his fingertips once more. It didn’t form what he intended though. Instead, it coalesced into a shining, silver blade, one that was almost familiar.

Alastair charged him then and Dean shouted, rolled to his knees, and shoved the blade into Alastair’s gut and twisting, hard, channeling the magic as best he could through the point of the oddly familiar blade.

Everything seemed to freeze for a moment as Alastair looked down at the blade in disbelief. “This blade… How…?” he choked, then his eyes flickered further down to see Jimmy and understanding dawned briefly before he splintered apart, his body dissolving into a blinding ash.

Staggering to his feet, Dean advanced on Meg with a growl next. She took one look at him, at the blade in his hands and the ash behind him, and smoked out.

The other demons paused and followed suit a bare few seconds later, leaving a pile of rotting corpses behind.

Dean fell to his knees, his sight going white as the power overwhelmed him, burned through him.

“Jimmy, stop,” he managed to croak out before he hit the ground. He barely noticed the look of panic on Jimmy’s face, didn’t even register the fact that Jimmy wasn’t touching him anymore before everything went suddenly and blissfully blank.

*~*~*~*~*CASTIEL~*~*~*~*~*

No sooner had Dean’s eyes rolled up in his head and he’d collapsed atop Jimmy, but several people burst through the broken door of the shop.

Cas growled, his hands, already tipped in his sharp claws, raised in defense, more than willing to attack. More demons? God, he hoped not.

“Dean!” the tallest figure froze for a split second before racing over to Dean and dropping to his knees. Cas relaxed at the sight. These must have been Dean’s reinforcements, come just a little too late.

Jimmy had shifted on the floor, dragging Dean up halfway into his lap, and his fingers had returned to normal, though the rest of him had not and Cas looked about nervously at all the newcomers. They didn’t seem to notice, or maybe they just didn’t care. Jimmy ran his fingers over Dean’s head, through his hair and when he lifted his face, there were tears there, leaking out from under the bandages.

“Cas!” he choked out. “Dean’s… what’s wrong? Why’s he unconscious? Did that demon get him?”

Cas was by his brother’s side in an instant, sheathing his claws and looking at the tall stranger warily before looking back down at Dean and Jimmy.

“I… I think it was too much,” Cas said carefully. “Jimmy, how much power did you give him?”

“I don’t know! As much as I could? It’s not like we can control it,” Jimmy said bitterly. “It’s not like we’ve ever trusted anyone enough to let them even  _ touch  _ it. All I knew was things didn’t sound like they were going well at all.”

“They weren’t,” Cas conceded.

“What happened?” the tall stranger asked. He had reached for Dean as Jimmy and Cas spoke, running his fingers over Dean’s throat, hovering them over Dean’s lips, then checking for further injuries.

“The one in charge – Alastair? – Dean got him,” Cas said. “But it was a near thing. Dean had this knife that could kill demons but Alastair just… just shook it off like it was nothing and tossing Dean about like a, like a ragdoll. We weren’t going to last and we didn’t know when the reinforcements would get here.”

“Yeah, sorry about that. The paths between were guarded by more demons. We had to fight to get through,” the man said.

“Sam, right?” Cas asked.

Sam nodded. “Right, Dean’s brother. So if the knife didn’t work, how’d you take out Alastair?” Sam asked, shooting a quick look up at Cas before returning to scanning his brother. After checking him over physically, Sam withdrew something from his jacket and closed his eyes, after closing Dean’s fist around it.

“Um…” Cas said. He didn’t want to interrupt Sam if what he was doing could help Dean, but Sam had asked a question. “Jimmy gave Dean access to…” he paused and took a deep breath, forcing the words out. Dean trusted his brother, he knew. They trusted Dean. And Sam deserved to know what really happened. “to our power. Dean siphoned it off and, he formed some sort of silver blade. I’ve never seen anything like it. But I think Alastair had. He seemed shocked when Dean stabbed him with it and then… it killed him. Utterly destroyed him. That pile of ashes is all that left. The rest of the demons all smoked out when Alastair was killed and then Dean collapsed, the blade just, evaporating when he did, like it never even existed.”

“Is he going to be okay?” Jimmy asked, his voice wavering uncertainly as he continued to stroke Dean’s head. “He’s burning up. Oh god, Cassie, I’ve killed him.”

“No, you haven’t. It’s just an overload – too much, too fast, with nowhere to go,” Sam said, not even opening his eyes. The thing in his hand, some sort of talisman, began to glow.

“That can still kill a witch,” Jimmy argued. Of course, Cas and Jimmy knew that. They’d used it to their advantage once or twice. “It’s my fault!”

“It won’t,” Sam said, opening his eyes and staring at Jimmy. Cas started when he noticed Sam’s eyes had been swallowed by light. Almost like Alastair’s. Cas gulped. “I’m siphoning off the excess so that Dean’s within safer limits again.”

“Siphoning  _ where _ , Sam?” Cas demanded.

“Several places. Not even I can hold what Jimmy gave him,” Sam grunted. “It’s already topped off my own reservoir, I’m also storing it in this talisman well. Bobby, Ellen, Loki, you want some of this before it burns my eyes out?”

Two older folks knelt beside Sam, placing a hand on each shoulder. Their eyes flashed briefly before they pulled away, quickly. Sam still glowed.

“Loki? You used a lot of power on the way here,” Sam said, strain coloring his voice.

“Can’t take it, Sam. Sorry. And don’t bother asking the fairies. It’s incompatible with them,” Loki said. “But I don’t think there’s much left to worry about. If you can  _ use  _ instead…”

“The wards,” Cas blurted. “The demons obliterated them on their way in.”

“Can you do healing magic?” Charlie suggested, staggering over with Balthazar’s support.

“I could use a ménage trois and a vacation in the Bahamas,” Balthazar suggested cheekily. Several heads turned to glare at him and he shrugged. “What? Sheesh, no sense of humor these days.”

Cas watched in wonder as the shop started repairing itself before his eyes. The door and the floor first and foremost, the devils traps reforming with the restoration of the boards, the paint they’d used not even showing signs of having been scratched. He felt, rather than saw, the wards going up – the normal, everyday use wards, the simple ones that kept away suspicious eyes, hiding the shop from the less open-minded. Wards that announced Neutral Ground and encouraged no harm within the shop. There were several of that kind, but the wards couldn’t change the being that walked into the shop, only make one less likely to start a fight.

That hadn’t seemed to matter to Alastair. It might have stopped the lesser demons, but Alastair had blown through everything.

Still, with every passing second, Cas could feel the wards and other magics snapping back into place. The chill from outside was gone and the lights turned back up to normal as some of the minor shop spells came back to full strength.

One of the glass counters pieced itself back together under his watchful gaze and everywhere he looked, the Emporium was going back to its pre-fight state.

Charlie stood up straighter, letting go of Balthazar and flexing her arms and legs with a whoop of glee. Jimmy’s whole being relaxed, the pain lines around his mouth easing away, and when Cas looked back down at Dean, he saw the scratches from his encounters with walls and glass counters start to close up before his eyes.

He’d never  _ seen  _ this much power used before. And this was the  _ excess?  _ Cas stared down at Dean in awe. Dean’s eyes slowly blinked open, the brilliant green of them against his white face slowly filling with color a gorgeous, welcome sight.

“Dean,” Cas breathed.

Jimmy’s breath hitched, his hands stilled. “Dean?” he asked softly, his hands resuming their path through Dean’s hair. Cas couldn’t hold back any longer, scootching in closer and laying his own hand on Dean’s hair and smoothing it back, lightly caressing his skin.

It no longer burned as Jimmy had said it did.

He glanced up at Sam whose eyes were slowly dimming to normal. Sighing in relief, Sam slumped beside Dean and glared.

“You’re a dumbass,” Sam grumped.

“Well, hello to you too, Sam,” Dean croaked, wincing as he spoke. “Status?”

“It’s over, boy,” Bobby said above them. “Ya did it. Alastair’s gone, thanks to the combined efforts of all of you. You can go home, son.” Bobby looked down at Dean fondly.

Dean blinked blearily up at the older man. “Home?” a smile spread over his face for a second before dropping away again. “Wait – Cas! Jimmy! Are they okay?”

“Who do ya think yer sittin’ on, ya idjit?” Bobby said with a roll of his eyes. He looked at Cas. “I hope you don’t expect  _ either  _ of them to be very coherent for the next few hours. They haven’t topped off their reserves in longer’n I can remember.”

“Well, that ain’t long at all, you old codger,” the woman, Ellen said from beside him. She knelt down beside them all, running a hand over Dean’s body, nodding in approval with what she found.

Sam shook his head slowly, dazedly. “I’m fine, Bobby.”

Bobby snorted. “Sure ya are,” he said, patting Sam on the head before he looked down at Cas and Jimmy. “And don’t think I don’t realize, boys, what ya did. This couldn’t’ve been done without either of you. I’m just sorry for what you all went through before we were able to take that sonuvabitch down,” he said, nodding towards Jimmy.

Ellen, finished her inspection of Dean with a pat to his chest that he barely protested and caught Cas’s eyes. “We’re mighty grateful, I hope you know that. Anything we can do for you two,” she paused and looked around towards the two fairies. “For all of you, you just let us know.”

Cas stared at her and then up at Bobby with a lump in his throat. He’d never felt so accepted, so  _ safe _ , since they’d left their mothers’ home, and even in later years, that hadn’t been safe any longer. Tears blurred his vision.

“But… you’re all, you’re all witches, aren’t you?” he asked.

“That we are, more or less,” Ellen said.

“I don’t understand,” Jimmy said. “Witches hunt us down as soon as they realize what we are. We’ve been running our whole lives. Why are you so, so different?”

“Oh, honey,” Ellen said sadly. “We’re from Winchester, and Winchester witches are cut from a whole different cloth. And, I know it’s hard to hear this, but most witches aren’t like that. That’s why Winchester Kingdom came under Alistair's attack in the first place. He wanted us out of the way, keep us from keeping the others in line, from protecting those that deserved protection, like you both.”

“You’re the police?” Cas asked incredulously. “ _ Magic _ police?”

Dean giggled suddenly. “I never thought of us as the police before.” He shifted his head, craning around to look at people, but his eyes were still glazed. “No, don’t stop,” he whined when Jimmy’s hands pulled away at his movement.

“Wait a second,” Ellen said. “Let’s see what we’ve got here, hmm?” She reached for Jimmy’s face and Cas made a sound as she removed the bandages.

For a second, Cas dared hope that all was well. The entire Emporium seemed to come to a stop, all sounds ceasing as everyone focused on Jimmy as he blinked and looked about the room. All their hopes were dashed within seconds.

“So um… all the lights are off, right?” he asked with a shaky smile, but there was no real hope in his voice. Cas gasped and covered his mouth with his hand but otherwise everyone was silent and the shaky smile fell.

“What?” Dean slurred from the floor. He reached up towards Jimmy’s face. “Can’t see? Didn’t Sammy heal you too?”

Cas looked over at Ellen, then Sam. “If you need more power – “ he started to say.

Ellen shook her head. “Won’t make a bit of difference. Eyes are a delicate thing, and there are some things magic just can’t do. For some reason, this is one of them. I’m sorry, boys.”

Jimmy swallowed. “It’s okay. My sight for our safety is a small price to pay,” he said bravely, a small quaver in his voice – probably unheard of by the others but to Cas, it cut him deep.

“Oh, Jimmy,” Cas choked out.

 


	9. Epilogue - Home at Last

*~*~*~*~*DEAN~*~*~*~*~*

Dean stood before the unassuming stones. Behind him, he had a small entourage.

Cas and Jimmy, Sam, Bobby and Ellen. Even Charlie and Balthazar had come along for the trip. Ostensibly, they’d been the Winchester guides back to the Old Land using the Ways Between (because Dean refused to use an airplane to cross the ocean and Jimmy had been too scared to stretch his wings and fly ever since he’d lost his sight) but everyone knew the fairies were just as curious as everyone else.

It’d taken a month to get back here. It shouldn’t have taken so long but there were arrangements to be made, responsibilities to pass off. They’d had  _ lives  _ out here and attachments they hadn’t felt right just abandoning, now they were given a choice and a second chance.

The bakery was in the hands of an overly cheerful kid called Garth. Ellen’s Roadhouse had been sold to a guy named Ash who, after one look at the guy, Dean was unsure if he was up to it, but Ellen assured that there was more to Ash then met the eye. Bobby’s scrapyard had been sold to an equally curmudgeonly man named Crowley, who they were  _ all  _ certain was more than what he seemed.

But Dean had lived with enough secrets through his life that he wasn’t about to pry into Crowley’s, and neither would the rest of them.

He fidgeted, placing a single hand on the strangely warm stone. It was late fall now, and though it was day, the sky was cloudy. There shouldn’t have been any heat in the stones.

Which is how Dean knew they were in the right place.

Why was he so hesitant to move forward? This was  _ home _ .

“Afraid of what we’ll find?” Sam asked softly, standing to Dean’s left.

Dean nodded and sighed. “Regardless of what we find, it won’t be the same.”

“Yeah, I get that. But we can’t stand outside forever,” Sam said.

Looking over at Cas and Jimmy standing in conversation with Ellen and Bobby, Dean felt resolve curl through him. Whatever they found on the other side, together, they would make Winchester a safe haven again.

Cas caught his eye and nudged Jimmy, and together they came over to Dean’s side.

“You ready?” Jimmy asked.

“It’ll be okay, Dean,” Cas said. “Whatever happens.”

Dean melted under their gazes, Jimmy’s still unseeing but his hearing had become uncanny. The last month had brought a lot of changes, not the least of which was the turn their relationship had taken. After the surprise confessions in the shop, it had only been a matter of days before they had all shared their first kiss.

It might have happened sooner if they hadn’t been so worried over Jimmy and it was Jimmy who’d grabbed them both with a growl and demanded they stop walking on eggshells around him and just, “Kiss me already, goddammit!”

Honestly, the entire last month had felt like a dream.

Alastair, dead and gone. The plans to reopen the kingdom. The ability to share his love with the twins openly, for them all to bare their souls to each other, no more secrets between them.

He told Cas and Jimmy things only Sam, Bobby and Ellen knew, and then he told the twins things that not  _ even _ they knew.

Like the panties.

Cas had demanded to see them at once and Jimmy – while he couldn’t see them – had fallen in love with the way they’d felt on Dean and had taken to going into lingerie stores and finding things completely by feel, much to Dean’s embarrassment.

Not much embarrassed Jimmy it seemed.

Jimmy leaned forward, brushing a kiss along Dean’s jaw, working his way to his lips and breaking Dean out of his thoughts. He kissed him gently, teasingly, leaving Dean wanting for more when he pulled away at Cas’s little huff.

“Don’t get jealous, Cassie,” Jimmy grinned.

“Why would I be jealous?” Cas asked, tilting his head. “We both have him and he has us.” He reached out, grabbing dean’s hand and curling their fingers together, and between them, Dean relaxed.

He was ready to do this.

“All right, you two might want to stand back. We have no idea how this will go,” Dean said.

Cas grabbed Jimmy’s hand, letting go of Dean’s, and together they stepped back, joining the others. Sam returned to his side – Dean hadn’t even realized he’d left – and he placed a hand on Dean’s shoulder.

Dean was the key to the lock, Sam unnecessary unless Dean had passed, but the brothers had decided they wanted to do this together. Feeling across the stone, Dean traced the warmth, a glow appearing under his fingers, reacting to his magic, his blood, the longer he touched it. He traced the sigils as the appeared then, one by one, he carefully pressed them in an order so randomized no one had ever memorized it.

He’d walked into this blind, not knowing where to press when, but the sigils sang within him, guiding his fingers.

After the last one, he grasped the wide standing stone with both hands and leaned his head against it, closing his eyes against the bright white glow that split the stone in two and opened a doorway. When the red glow against his eyelids fell away, Dean reopened his eyes to stare through the stone door, now opened on a kingdom that had been closed for centuries.

It was the same season, there, but it was brighter, a little less cloudy. The door opened in the overgrown courtyard of a small castle that looked out over an abandoned village. Dean traced long forgotten shapes with his eyes, gasping when they fell upon a series of stone statues stood across the yard.

Sam gasped beside him. “Is that…?”

“It can’t be,” Dean choked out. No longer hesitant, Dean crossed the threshold and quickly crossed the courtyard to stop beside the four stone figures. He reached out and lightly stroked the cheek of a very regal looking woman, stood beside a man with a short-cropped beard – both wearing the crowns of their ranks.

Tears pricked his eyes and Dean felt Jimmy and Cas at his side, Jimmy placing his hand on the small of Dean’s back while Cas pressed in close from the other side.

“Dean, who are they?” Cas asked softly.

“The King and Queen of Winchester – my parents,” Dean answered just as softly.

The stone rippled under Dean’s fingers suddenly, and as the rest of the group strode forward, all four statues began to regain their color; firm, hard stone became soft flesh, a collective breath being drawn by each of the four.

“Rufus?” Bobby’s normally sarcastic tone was replaced with hope, and he wasn’t the only one.

Ellen pushed her way forward with a cry of “Bill!” racing to the side of another of the statues.

“Wait, they’re alive?” Cas asked, his voice incredulous, but Dean couldn’t take his eyes off his parents.

“We are,” King John said, blinking his eyes open and his gaze falling on Dean. Dean held his breath as he beheld his father and mother. “I have a feeling that we’ve been waiting for you a long time, Dean.”

“Dean, you… you’re not just the heir, you’re  _ the  _ heir!” Jimmy blurted. “Holy shit, dude.”

Queen Mary stepped forward, “You and your brother have  _ grown _ ,” she said, tears in her eyes as she wrapped her arms around Dean.

He slowly hugged her back. “I’m sorry we took so long. I had no idea you were both still alive. That any of you were.”

“We almost weren’t,” a gruff voice broke in. Dean turned to see Rufus, his arm still around Bobby’s shoulder, Bobby’s eyes suspiciously wet. “We were badly injured in the battle, but our Queen – ever quick thinking - cast a preservation spell on us just as King John banished Alastair.”

“That was the last of our power, the node locking down as the Kingdom sealed. We healed in our slumber, but if you’d never have returned, we would never have awoken,” Bill said, not letting go of Ellen who, like Bobby, had tears in her eyes.

“Why?” Jimmy blurted.

“Why… why what, young man?” Dean’s dad asked.

“Why did you lock down the node, your source of power? Why did you cut yourself off from the very ammo you needed to fight Alastair? Why let him run free in the world? Do you know how much damage he’s done?”

“We’ve a sworn oath to make sure no demon ever gets their hand on the magic of Winchester. How dare you question us!” John rose his voice in fury.

Neither Jimmy nor Cas were cowed and it was Cas who growled. “I think it’s a valid question. Your actions put many in danger. My family – we don’t even know if they’re dead or alive and in such deep hiding they’ll never be found. When they couldn’t get to  _ your  _ source of power, they came after  _ ours.” _

Mary’s eyes widened, her hand covering her mouth. “Oh, you’re  _ them _ . The hybrids that Alastair and the dark witches coveted.”

“Yes,  _ them _ ,” Jimmy spit out. “We’ve lived our whole lives in fear. We’ve been hunted again and again. So have your sons! Why cut off the only salvation left?”

Dean listened to the argument in stunned silence. Jimmy and Cas were right. He and Sam had had no chance against Alastair without a source of power – not until the twins had come along. So why?

“You think we wanted this?” Mary said, backing away. “You think we wanted to evacuate the whole castle, the village and the surrounding areas? To send our only sons away into the unknown with only our most trusted and miss out on all the milestones of their lives? That we wouldn’t have killed Alastair if we could?”

John laid a hand on Mary’s shoulder and she stilled. He looked back at Dean and all those who surrounded him.

“It’s not something we choose. We’re the caretakers of the node and it’s a built-in self-defense mechanism. No one knows how or why, and those of us who stayed to fight – we’re the only ones left and we were too injured to keep going. We barely performed those last spells as it was,” John said, an air of defeat about him.

“Dad – “ Dean said, reaching for his parents.

“No, Dean. Your friends were right to question it. It’s a contingency plan your mother and I have questioned for ages. But now, it is a worry no longer. Let us reopen the kingdom, become what we once were. Rebuilding will be slow, but it can be done.”

No sooner had John finished speaking than a host of something careened through the door with wings held close to their bodies, arching up into the sky with wild shrieks and roars of joy. Every eye turned on the sight, nearly everyone there reaching for a weapon or magic reflexively before they realized what was going on.

It was Jimmy who spoke first, head tilted, eyes closed, a slow smile spreading across his face. “Samandriel, Anna, Hannah, Gabriel, Jack – oh my god, Cassie! They’re alive – they’re all  _ alive!” _

The dragons in the sky wheeled about, coasting in for a landing. In a motion too fluid for Dean to catch, each of them shifted the second they touched down.

Sam blinked. “Loki?”

The man Dean had last seen at the Emporium strolled forward with a wink. “Name’s Gabriel, actually,” he said, his form shimmering and an illusion falling away to reveal a short, golden-eyed, honey-blonde haired man rather than the taller, dark-haired man they’d thought he was.

“You can use your magic!” Cas breathed. “How?”

Gabriel grimaced. “With great difficulty, at first. But never mind that now.” He took Castiel in his arms, then Jimmy. “It’s finally over and we’re safe.”

“You were there, at the Emporium. Why didn’t you  _ say  _ anything?” Cas asked, choking. Jimmy stepped close to him, rubbing at his arms while Dean glared down Gabriel.

“Looked like you two –“ Gabriel paused, looked at Dean with a smirk and a waggle of his eyebrows, “Had a lot on your plate in that moment. One more thing, I thought, could tip you over the edge. Besides, it took me all month to hunt these losers down.”

The others smacked Gabriel but his grin didn’t diminish. One by one, the other dragons approached Cas and Jimmy, leading a very heartwarming reunion.

Dean looked back at his own, stunned family, including the parents he thought long dead.

_ Well, I guess it’s a day for reunions. _

He smiled about him. If he’d thought the giddiness he’d felt a month ago when the dust had cleared had been overwhelming, that was nothing to how he felt now.

Alastair was dead, his parents were alive. He, Cas and Jimmy were together and their family was alive too. It was time to rebuild a kingdom, to rebuild Winchester into the Safe Haven it had once been.

He couldn’t think of a better beginning.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, here we are - at the end! I hope you enjoyed the trip! I've been waiting to share this for a WHILE now!  
> Make sure to let[ princessjimmynovak ](https://princessjimmynovak.tumblr.com/post/185634329895/art-for-in-the-dark-by-pherryt-for-the) know what you think of her art!! :D


End file.
